Butts Advances To NCAA Championships
May 27, 2010 | Track & Field
May 27, 2010
GREENSBORO, N.C. - Freshman Tynita Butts is on her way to the NCAA Outdoor Championships after qualifying in the high and long jump events Thursday at the 2010 East Regional at the Irwin Belk Track on the campus of North Carolina A&T.
Each event started out with a field of 48, then was narrowed down to 16 athletes before a final 12 moved on to Eugene, Ore.
Butts placed 12th in the long jump with a mark of 6.19 meters, edging out Leah Elber of Purdue by one-fourth of a foot. She then reached 1.81 meters in the high jump, taking just two attempts to reach that height and placing fifth.
The 2010 indoor and outdoor Conference USA Freshman-of-the-Year will participate in her second and third national meet events of the season after she placed 10th in the high jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships.
Sophomore Nicole Tozzi just missed joining Butts in Oregon, taking 13th in the javelin with a mark of 44.31 meters.
Two Pirate men, Dennis Aliotta and Mario Briscoe, also competed Thursday. Aliotta was 28th in the hammer throw, checking in with a heave of 56.97 meters, while Brisoce finished 43rd in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles, clocking in at 56.20.
Eight ECU athletes will attempt to book their places in the national meet tomorrow - Matthew McConaughey and Spencer Barrick in the javelin, Maegan Lewis, Kim Kanala and Donisha Brown in the hammer, Aliotta in the shot put, Drew Kanz O'Shea in the high jump, and Randy Bolton in the 110-meter high hurdles.
