Running in nice weather hasn’t been a common occurrence for the ISU women’s track team this season, but when provided with the chance, it has made the most of it. Coming off a strong performance at the Jim Duncan Invitational, the Cyclones left the John McDonnell Invitational with two more regional qualifiers.

“We had a lot of good things happen down in Arkansas,” said coach Dick Lee. “It’s a very competitive meet, one thing with outdoors is every week is a gamble so this week turned out to be a big week for the sprinters to get out on the track.”

Rebecca Williams, Jenna Caffrey and Megan Nielsen all took advantage of the chance to run in nice weather, each qualifying for the finals in the 100-meter hurdles with Caffrey joining Williams by qualifying for Regionals. Williams finished third with a time of 13.41 seconds, followed by Caffrey in fourth with a time of 13.72. Nielsen finished the meet with 14.48 seconds besting her previous career best time of 15.01 seconds.

“I ran consistently,” said Williams. “I am just trying to drop time but my body is kind of out of it from training so much, but I know once we taper down my time will start dropping.”

Williams was in contention to win the event until a mishap over the final hurdle cost her precious time and momentum and dropped her to third.

“Arkansas was an interesting meet,” said sprint and hurdle coach Scott Roberts. “Rebecca Williams in the finals was running lights out until the final hurdle. I think her time would have been a school record if she would have been able to maintain through that final hurdle.”

Caffrey had a similar incident in the prelim by hitting a hurdle that almost kept her out of the finals because of precautionary measures. Caffrey has been battling a sore hip flexor.

Senior Sara Boisen finished second in the 400-meter hurdle event with a time of 1 minute and .23 seconds. Boisen’s time was good enough to qualify her for the regional meet for the fourth time in her career.

“Sara Boisen got the monkey off her back, so to speak,” Roberts said. “Making it to Regionals for the fourth year in a row, now that she is not going to be worried about time she is going to be able to go out and race and her times are going to drop through the floor.”

All four will run on the shuttle hurdle relay this weekend at the Drake Relays.

The hurdle crew were not the only Cyclones to leave their mark in Arkansas. Distance runner Page Ties placed second in the 1,500-meter run in a time of 4 minutes and 51.21 seconds. Ties is normally a 5,000-meter specialist. Dawn Caffrey finished right on the heels of Ties in a time of 4:56.20 for fifth.

The Cyclones also got top-five performances from Leigh Wagner in the high jump – who placed second, and Priya Hoze in the long jump with a fifth-place finish.