Three members of the ISU men’s and women’s track and field teams qualified for next month’s NCAA Regionals while competing at the Bayou Classic at Rice University this weekend.

One the men’s side, Tony Douglas qualified by winning the long jump with a distance of 7.39 meters. Ada Anderson qualified for the women with a time of 209.32 to win the 800-meter run, and Sara Boisen took second in the 400-meter hurdles to qualify with a time of 1:00.53.

Men’s coach Steve Lynn said Douglas didn’t have his best jump, but still worked hard enough to qualify.

“That’s not one of his best jumps, the wind was really slowing him down and he had a couple of big jumps he fouled on,” Lynn said.

“The running effort and qualifying for regionals – those were the two things we were looking for when we came down here for him.”

Also highlighting the men’s side was a win in the 4×400 meter relay, with Eric Parker, Tony Stanfield, James Robinson and Elijah Braimah taking the victory. Braimah also had a personal best in the 400-meter dash with a time of 47.61, finishing second, and Parker was second in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 53.94.

“I think that we had some good things happen, and got ourselves ready for the outdoor season,” Lynn said. “We had quite a few people that had season’s bests, career bests and I think they are pretty confident going on in the rest of the season.”

Lynn said handling the 80-degree heat will set them up well for the rest of the season.

“That was an experience for them, and it was good for us to get experienced in that kind of heat,” Lynn said. “We’re certainly going to see it later on in the conference meet [in Waco, Texas] if not in the regional meet in Austin.”

Although only Douglas qualified for the regionals, Lynn is expecting others to follow suit in the near future.

“We came up just short for qualifying for regionals on a couple of other events, but I think we’ll get those in the upcoming weeks,” Lynn said.

On the women’s side, sprints coach Scott Roberts said having Anderson qualify for regionals will help with training for the rest of the season.

“We’ve kind of backed down our training after nationals, but getting a regional qualifying mark the first meet of the year – that gives us a lot of flexibility in training and we can do some things training-wise that other people don’t have the luxury of doing that haven’t qualified yet,” Roberts said.

For Boisen, who hadn’t raced in the hurdles all year after missing most of the indoor season with mononucleosis, qualifying for regionals opened up new possibilities.

“It gives us the flexibility to put her in the 800, see if we can’t get her qualified also in the 800-meter run and see what the easiest path is for her to get to nationals,” Roberts said.

“This is the earliest she’s ever run anywhere near this fast.”

Other highlights included Nicole Teitsworth taking third in the javelin with a throw of 40.78 meters, and Leigh Wagner with a high jump of 1.70 meters, falling just short of the 1.75 meter qualifying mark.

Roberts said he felt good about the first outdoor meet of the year.

“We had a pretty good meet for the first one outdoors. We’ve only practiced a handful of times outside all year,” Roberts said.

“It was a different kind of a situation for our kids, but they responded pretty well for the first one of the year.”

Iowa State will next compete at the UNI Open on Saturday, with a small group heading to the Texas Relays in Austin on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.