UAA sophomore Danielle McCormick of Soldotna crushed the school record in the women's 800 meters Saturday in California to provisionally qualify for the NCAA Division II outdoor track and field championships and already early in the season give the Seawolves more than a dozen qualifiers.
McCormick clocked 2 minutes, 7.75 seconds, the fastest time of 84 runners competing in heats at the San Francisco State Distance Carnival. That slashed nearly three seconds off her previous personal-best for two laps and lopped 1.59 off Ivy O'Guinn's previous UAA standard, set in 2013. O'Guinn also was from Soldotna.
The Seawolves on Friday added seven provisional qualifiers to give them one automatic qualifier this season — senior heptathlete Karolin Anders — and 12 provisional qualifiers.
Also Saturday, senior decathlete Travis Turner of UAA competed in the 110-meter hurdles and ran a personal-best 14.80 to win that competition. Sophomore Nicholas Taylor clocked 48.19 to finish second in the 400 meters and lop .37 off his previous best. Junior George Grant finished second in the men's shot put at 49 feet, 9.25 inches, 1.25 inches shy of the school record he delivered last week.
Friday at the Stanford Invitational, Boise State's Allie Ostrander of Soldotna made her debut in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and crushed it. Her 9:55.61 — in her first race since the Olympic Trials in July — was the fastest time in the country this season.
Ostrander, the Division I runner-up in cross country in 2015 and eighth in the 5,000 meters at the Olympic Trials, had not raced in roughly eight months because of injury.