Men's Outdoor Track and Field | 5/22/2021 2:56:41 PM
St. John Fisher senior Kyle Rollins, Nazareth College junior Brenna Johnson and Utica College sophomore Kelsey Wands were selected to compete in the 2021 NCAA Men's & Women's Outdoor Track & Field Championships set for May 27-29 at the Irwin Belk Track Complex in Greensboro, N.C. Rollins will compete in both the men's high jump and triple jump, while Johnson and Wands will both compete in the women's long jump.
Johnson and Wands will compete in the women's long jump on Thursday at 5 p.m., while Rollins competes in the high jump starting Friday at 2:30 p.m. and triple jump on Saturday at 10:30 a.m.
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For each men's individual event contested, including the decathlon, the top 17 declared student-athletes were accepted into the competition. For each women's individual event contested, including the heptathlon, the top 19 declared student-athletes were accepted into the competition. For each relay event contested, the top 14 declared relay teams, one per institution, were accepted into the competition.
Rollins is the No. 1 national seed in the high jump, having cleared 2.17 meters and is the No. 2 seed in the triple jump, with a leap of 15.45 meters. A six-time All-American during his career, Rollins is the defending national champion in the high jump, having won the event at the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Championships. This season, Rollins has claimed both the Empire 8 Indoor and Outdoor Championship Field Athlete of the Meet honors. He swept the long, triple and high jump events at both championships. Last week, he won the high jump at the 2021 All-Atlantic Region Championship from the Polisseni Track and Field Complex.
Wands made the field by way of an extraordinary string of recent performances in the long jump. The 2021 Empire 8 Champion posted a massive improvement to her top mark on May 20 at the AARTFC Outdoor Championships to not only qualify, but establish herself as a title contender. In the same meet where the nation's top performance was also set, Wands posted the nation's second-best performance of the year at the time with a career-best jump of 5.84 meters to finish as the regional runner-up. Her impressive performance came in the final hours of the qualifying window, with Thursday standing as the deadline for a qualifying performance. She will compete as the fourth overall seed.
It is the second NCAA Championships selection for Wands, and her first outdoors. She will get to compete in a national championship for the first time, as she qualified for the 2020 NCAA Indoor Championships which were later canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Johnson qualfied for nationals in the same meet as Wands, recording a personal-best leap of 5.76 meters on Thursday, which is the 13th best jump in Division III this season. An accomplished sprinter, who only began jumping in April, Johnson has enjoyed an excellent 2021 season, having won Track Athlete of the Meet honors at both the Empire 8 Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field Championship Meets. It is her first trip to nationals.