YSU’s Harden advances in NCAA prelims

Staff report

Youngstown State freshman Collin Harden advanced to today’s quarterfinals in the 400-meter hurdles with a strong performance at the NCAA East Preliminaries on Thursday at Kentucky’s Outdoor Track and Field Complex.

Overall, Harden had the 11th-fastest time of all 48 runners. He was the second-fastest freshman of the group behind Hampton’s Jaelen Williams.

Harden tied his school record with a time of 51.98 seconds in his heat, which was good for second place. The top three finishers in each of the six heats plus the next six best times advance to the quarterfinals. That race will be on today at 7:15 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN3.

“This feels great,” Harden said. “I didn’t know what to expect going in. But since I ran a pretty good time I have a lot of confidence in myself heading into [today].”

Running in heat No. 3, Harden was second to Florida’s T.J. Holmes who ran the second-fastest preliminary time of 50.62 seconds.

The top 12 finishers in the quarterfinals advance to the NCAA Championships in the event.

Harden said while it was nice to finish ahead of many older competitors, he’s waiting until this next round to evaluate his performance.

“I know some of them didn’t go as hard as they could because it was prelims,” Harden said. “[If I beat them today] I would feel really proud of myself if I did that.”

Senior Taylor McDonald ran a time of 59.92 seconds in the 400m hurdles and finished 25th, just one spot out of moving on to today’s quarterfinal. McDonald was 0.04 seconds behind Kent State’s Taylor Farquhar who finished in 24th place. McDonald was fourth in her heat which featured the fourth, seventh and 14th-fastest qualifiers.

In the javelin, junior Tyler Donati had a best throw of 52.92m (173-8) to finish 44th.

In the men’s 10,000 meters, Ryan Roush finished 27th overall with a time of 30:53.70, missing out on nationals.

Chad Zallow will be running in the first round of the 110 hurdles set to go off at 5 p.m. today. Zallow will be in the sixth heat and has the nation’s best time at 13.37 seconds.

Another YSU freshman, Jaliyah Elliot will also run today in the 200. She will run in the second heat which is set to begin at 7:30 p.m. Her qualifying time of 23.68 is 130th best in the nation.

Ryan Booth will also be competing in the shot put today. His qualifying throw of 58-feet-10-inches is 68th best in the country. Booth will have to finish 12th or better in this region to qualify for nationals.