University of Washington Athletics

SEATTLE - Four Huskies have made the cut for the NCAA Indoor Championships, taking place March 10-11 in College Station, Texas. Fields of sixteen athletes in each event were finalized based on this season's performances, and representing UW will be senior Elizabeth Quick, juniors Colby Gilbert and Amy-Eloise Neale, and sophomore Chase Smith.

Washington has some nice symmetry with one distance runner and one pole vaulter on each side making the trip. Gilbert is entered in two events, the 3,000-meters and 5,000-meters, Neale will run the mile, with Smith and Quick in the pole vault fields. It will be the third-straight NCAA Indoor trip for Gilbert, who was on the runner-up DMR and also took 8th in the 3k last year. Quick will be making her second straight NCAA Indoor appearance, after finishing ninth-place in the vault in 2016. Neale and Smith are heading to Indoors for the first time.

Gilbert's pair of school records this season in the 3k and the 5k mark him as one of the top contenders in both events. His 3k time of 7:45.71 is No. 1 in the field, while his 5k time of 13:34.85 is second-fastest in the field, and a full four seconds clear of third-place. He had a relatively light workload at MPSFs this past weekend, only running the lead-off leg on UW's distance medley relay, so he should be fresh for NCAAs. Neale is seeded eighth overall in the mile field with her PR of 4:34.15, the second-fastest in school history. Neale also ran lead-off on UW's DMR last weekend, and then ran a 4:36 mile to take third at MSPFs, however she is the only mile entrant from the MPSF/Pac-12. Smith and Quick are both coming off conference victories and season-bests. Smith cleared 17-11 1/4 to win MPSFs and that mark ties him for 12th in the NCAA field, while Quick made 14-0 to win, which puts her in a tie for 10th overall.

Senior Kennadi Bouyer unfortunately just missed the cut. The final time into the women's 60m dash field was 7.27 seconds, and Bouyer ran multiple 7.28s this year. Last season when Bouyer was the 16th athlete in before going on to finish 8th, her mark to qualify was just 7.32, but a faster field bumped her out by a hundredth of a second.