March 8, 2010
NCAA Indoor Championships Performance List
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A trio of Illinois women's track and field athletes will compete at the NCAA Indoor Championships, as the official declaration list was announced tonight. Senior Angela Bizzarri will run the 3,000m, senior Aja Evans will take part in the shot put and junior Tamika Robinson will run the 60m hurdles at the Randal Tyson Track Center in Fayetteville, Ark.
The University of Arkansas hosts the national competition on Friday, March 12 and Saturday, March 13. Robinson will be the only Illini competitor on Friday, as she will run in the preliminaries of the 60m hurdles at 5:40 p.m. If she advances, the finals of the 60m hurdles are scheduled for 6:45 p.m. on Saturday. Evans is slated to begin the shot put at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday while Bizzarri will run the 3,000m at 7:45 p.m. later that night. Both Bizzarri and Evans set school records in their respective events this indoor season and will be aiming for All-America honors for the third straight year.
Bizzarri, a two-time national champion and eight-time All-American, is seeded seventh in the 3,000m race after breaking the school record and winning the Big Ten title with a time of 9:10.16. The Mason, Ohio native looks to improve on last year's fourth-place finish in the event. Bizzarri also qualified for this year's national meet by running an automatic qualifying time in the 5,000m, but will opt to focus solely on the 3,000m.
Evans heads into the weekend seeded fifth in the shot put after she won the Big Ten title with a school record mark of 56-0 ½ (17.08m). The Chicago, Ill., native has earned All-America accolades at back-to-back NCAA Indoor Championships after placing ninth in 2008 and fifth in 2009.
Robinson qualified for nationals for the first time in her career and is ranked 14th heading into the championships. She ran a personal-best 8.25 during the preliminaries of the Big Ten Championships and matched that time at this past weekend's Iowa State NCAA Qualifier, where she won the 60m-hurdle title.
