Women's Track Sending 12 to NCAA -- MONDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

 CARDS WOMEN'S TRACK AND FIELD SENDING 12 TO REGIONALS

Leon

The NCAA Regionals that UofL Track and Field will participate in will take place in Bloomington, IN at IU from May 25-28. Louisville has 12 student-athletes of their track and field squad that will be taking part in. 

Let's take a look at one of the field events the Cards could finish very well in... 

Welter

Louisville will be sending three pole vault participants to compete, which speaks volumes on how strong that particular part of the Cards field events crew is. Gabriela Leon leads the "vaulters" -- she's a two-time ACC Champion and holds the record at UofL. Aliyah Welter is another strong performer in the pole vault for the Cards and  Auriane Viola (from France) was the French National Champion in the pole vault her senior year in high school. 

Leon has the fifth highest vault in the NCAA women's rankings this year -- with a 4.46m { 14'7.5") vault, accomplished in the ACC Indoor Championships. Welter is 22nd in the nation. Two Virginia Tech vault specialists are in the top three of the rankings. 

Viola

The art of the pole vault is a bit different that your average field event, since you're using a pole to propel you to heights. It takes a combination of building up a good speed running down the runway, carrying your pole, getting your steps right as you prepare to plant the pole and jump and then planting it and allowing the flexible pole to send you skyward. Clearing the horizontal bar some 14 feet up there in the air without touching it is your next task and then you fall downward and end up in a bed of foam. 

I thought I might want to be a pole vault jumper at one time in my life, but just couldn't get the mechanics of it down and stuck with the much more simpler long and triple jumping events. 

As the regionals get closer, we'll also look at two other field events where the Cards took first place in the ACC Championships --- the high jump and long jump. 

paulie