Five Ferris State Track & Field Athletes Earn All-America Honors On Day One At NCAA Championships

Big Rapids, Mich. - Five members of the Ferris State University women's indoor track and field squad earned All-America honors as the Bulldogs opened action with a pair of seventh-place finishes in the 2014 NCAA Division II National Indoor Championships on Friday (March 14) in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The two-day national championships are taking place at the JDL Fast Track and hosted by Winston-Salem State University along with Visit Winston-Salem. 

Ferris State senior standout Anna Rudd placed seventh overall in the 5,000 meters in a time of 17:14.19 to earn All-America accolades for the second-straight year in the event. The defending national champion in the race, she recorded two points for the Bulldogs in the team standings by scoring in the event, which was won by Adams State's (Colo.) Laura Martin with a clocking of 17:04.60.

Meanwhile, FSU's women's distance medley relay contingent of Breeann Ovokaitys, Zoey Hohmann, Alyssa Osika and Shea VanKlompenberg also attained All-America recognition with a seventh-place effort of their own. They clocked 11:51.71 to finish one slot ahead of Grand Valley State and earn two points towards the team race with Adams State owning the top performance of 11:40.51 overall.

Student-athletes qualified for the championships by reaching the automatic and provisional standards established for each event with the final selected participants chosen based on their performance marks.

Rudd will wrap up FSU's competition at the Division II National Championships by competing in the 3,000 meters on Saturday (March 15) beginning at 6:25 p.m. (ET). She holds the seventh-best seed time going into the prelims of the 3,000 (9:42.34).

Rudd entered the national meet as the defending national champion in the indoor 5,000 meters. She etched her name in the record books last season as she claimed the NCAA Division II Championship in the event during the national indoor meet held at the Birmingham (Ala.) CrossPlex March 7-9. She became only the second-ever women's track and field individual national champion in school history by winning the indoor 5,000 at last year's national meet.

A total of 540 participants, 270 men and 270 women, are competing in the championships. 

For more information on the NCAA-II Championships, please visit this link:
http://primetimetiming.com/liveresults/2014/ncaa_indoor_2014/

For live video during the meet, please visit this link:
http://www.ncaa.com/liveschedule/2014/03/14