Marquette Track & Field’s Season Comes To An End At NCAA West Regional

The 2017 Marquette track and field season came to an end on Saturday at the NCAA Outdoor West Regional, as none of the four Golden Eagles in competition placed in the top 12 necessary to advance to the national finals in Oregon.

While MU doesn’t have anyone advancing, the three day meet was not without drama for the Golden Eagles. On Thursday, John Krzyszkowski, a four time Big East champion in the javelin throw and Marquette’s school record holder, was unable to record an official throw after fouling on all three attempts. Krzyszkowski was throwing in the third and final flight of 16 athletes, so at that point, the field had largely coalesced and all he needed to do was complete an average throw for him this season in order to advance. However, he wasn’t quite able to get a clean throw off and while his throws seemed to have the necessary distance, they didn’t land properly and didn’t officially count.

In the evening, Brittney Feivor was looking strong in the 10,000 meters after seven laps, or approximately halfway through the race, riding as high as third place and clearly in contention for a top 12 finish. Unfortunately, she got tripped up by a runner falling in front of her, and that sent her all the way back to 40th place. Feivor regrouped, though, and ended up finishing 16th with a personal best time of 35:24.85, which is also the second best time in school history. She finished just 23 seconds short of the 12th and final qualifying time and about 80 seconds behind the third place spot that she was holding when she fell. While we’re left wondering what could have happened if the fall never happened, it’s one hell of a performance by Feivor. She came in ranked 31st in the region and ended up with Marquette’s best ever regional finish in the event.

Jessica Parker was MU’s third competitor on Thursday, and she snagged one of the automatic spots to the 800 meters quarterfinals on Friday when she finished third in her heat. She ended up with one of the eight fastest times in the first round as she ran her second best time ever. She had a rougher go of things in Friday’s quarterfinals, finishing nearly six seconds slower in her group, but that didn’t really have that much of an impact on not qualifying to advance. Parker would have needed to shave three seconds off her Thursday time to get an automatic spot out of her group or two seconds to get one of the at-large spots. As was the case with Feivor, Parker merely advancing to the quarterfinals was an impressive showing, as she came in ranked 23rd in the region.

Things wrapped up on Saturday with Big East indoor and outdoor champion Daniel Armstrong participating in the high jump. Armstrong had a personal best and Marquette freshman record of 2.17 meters to qualify for regionals, but couldn’t get a clean jump at 2.05 meters in Texas. He ended up in 42nd place and would have needed to clear at least 2.15 meters in order to finish in the top 12. The good news is that Armstrong has now finished his freshman season, so he’s got a lot of good jumps left to go in his collegiate career.

You can check out full results of the meet right here.