This weekend gives the ISU men’s and women’s track and field teams their last chances to qualify for the upcoming NCAA Indoor Championships.

The Cyclones host an NCAA qualifying meet – the last of the season – on Saturday. Teams from across the country will be in attendance, including two of the top three men’s track teams, Arizona State and Florida State.

“We have a few guys that have an opportunity or shot at making nationals, so we’ll see how that shakes out this weekend,” said ISU head coach Corey Ihmels.

Junior Brandon Rooney will get another chance to qualify in the mile run. Rooney’s personal best of 4 minutes, 4.04 seconds, set at the ISU Classic, is just shy of the provisional qualifying time of 4 minutes, 4.00 seconds.

Senior Jayden Russ will run in either the mile or 3,000-meter run. He will also run a leg of the distance medley relay.

The distance medley relay team will run in the Alex Wilson Invitational held at Notre Dame on Friday and Saturday.

Iowa State enters the meet following an 11th-place finish at last weekend’s Big 12 Championships.

Ihmels said that, although the team would have liked to place higher, he thought the team gave a strong showing over the weekend.

“I think everybody there competed hard, and we some bright spots,” he said.

One of those bright spots was freshman Hillary Bor. Running in his first Big 12 championship meet, Bor stayed in the front of the pack to finish third in the mile run.

“I knew the final would be fast,” said Bor. “So I was ready to run.”

Bor’s time of 4 minutes, 3.43 seconds was fast enough to provisionally qualify him for the NCAA meet.

“To be top three in any of our events for our conference is hard,” said Ihmels. “He did a great job to step in and do it as a freshman.”

Ihmels said the team will most likely run Bor in the 3,000-meter this weekend, and he will also run on the distance medley team.

James Galvan has already qualified for the championships in the 800-meter-run. The junior is currently ranked eighth with his time of 1 minute, 48.36 seconds, at the ISU Open in January. Galvan placed second in the 800-meter at the Big 12 championships.

Galvan believes the team still has room to improve.

“Even though people having been hitting [personal records], we can still do better. This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

Only a select few team members – those vying for spots in the championship meet -will compete this weekend.

“We will just be running a smattering of guys,” said Ihmels. “For a lot of the guys, it will be just back to training for the outdoor season.”

For the women, one distance runner is looking to join her teammate at nationals.

Heading into this weekend, Lisa Koll’s 5,000-meter time of 15 minutes, 52.37 seconds is the second-best in the nation, and her 3,000-meter time of 9 minutes, 20.87 seconds is ranked 21st.

Fellow Cyclone Grace Kemmey is ranked 41st in the 5,000 with a time of 16 minutes, 41.65 seconds. Kemmey will probably need to run in the 16:30 range in order to have a chance to make the field at the NCAA Championships.