Of the seven Highlanders competing in the NCAA West Regional Championship in Fayetteville, Ark., last weekend, Ted Hooper was the sole Highlander who earned the privilege of being able to compete at the National Championship to take place in two weeks.
UCR’s long jump legend Ted Hooper punched his ticket to Oregon with his impressive performance on Thursday. Hooper’s 25.75-foot leap was good enough for second place in the event, as well as a trip to Eugene, Ore. next Thursday. With nearly two weeks to prepare for one of the biggest stages of his life, Ted Hooper looks to end his senior year with a bang and cap off a distinguished career at UCR.
Of the other athletes on the men’s side, Michael Koger competed in the 400m hurdles, finishing in 39th place with a time of 52.87 seconds. Caleb Stuart and Carl Nahigan competed in the shot put, with the former finishing in 41st place and the latter fouling out on all three of his attempts. Chima Ikeme competed in the men’s discus for the Highlanders and finished in 42nd place with a toss of 166 feet and seven inches.
On the women’s side, Danielle Littleton’s time of 13.84 seconds in the 100m hurdles earned her a spot in the quarterfinals by the slimmest of margins. Of the 46 competitors in the preliminaries, the top 24 were set to advance. Littleton earned the 24th and final spot with the next competitor clocking in at 13.842 seconds (a difference of two thousandths of a second).
In the quarterfinals, Littleton finished in 22nd place with a time of 13.73 seconds, a mark that was shy of the cutoff (top 12) for a spot in the NCAA championship.
Littleton also competed in the long jump, finishing with a leap of 19 feet and nine inches, tying her for 15th place with four other athletes, with the top 16 set to advance. With a tiebreaker that judges athletes on their second-best jump, Littleton barely missed the cut and found herself on the outside looking in.
Phoenisha Schuhmeier also competed in the long jump for UCR, and finished in 38th place with a leap of 18 feet and five inches.
