Friday, March 09, 2007

Sophomore Laura Rolf (Rochester, Mich./Lutheran Northwest) finished fifth in her heat of the mile run Friday at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville, Ark. By virtue of her finish, Rolf qualifies for Saturday's event final, which will be run at 6:15 p.m.

Rolf competed in the first of two heats Friday, and crossed the line fifth out of eight competitors with a time of 4:45.89. Nicole Edwards won Rolf's heat in 4:44.30. The top three in each heat automatically qualified for Saturday's final, along with the next four fastest runners, so Rolf had to wait out the second heat to learn whether she qualified. Rolf's time ended up being ninth-fastest out of the 16 participants in the preliminaries.

Rolf becomes just the second Crusader ever to advance to an NCAA event final and looks to follow in Collette Liss' footsteps as an All-American, which Liss earned 10 years ago in the 3,000m run. Rolf will try to join her Saturday evening at 6:15 p.m., as the top eight American runners will earn the honors.