Rio Grande ---A few members of the University of Rio Grande RedStorm men's and women's track and field squads spent the weekend in one last ditch effort to qualify for the NAIA Outdoor National Championships. Five athletes went to the Ohio Open on Saturday while three athletes made the trek to Durham, N.C. and the Duke Twilight Meet. Unfortunately none of the athletes competing hit the qualifying standards for the NAIA Championships. Both meets were non-scoring events.

For the men, senior Justin Francisco (Belpre, OH) competed in a couple of events, the 100-meter dash and the 110-hurdles at the Ohio Open on Saturday. It was a good news/bad news scenario for Francisco, who won the hurdle event, but failed to get the qualifying time. His time was 15.75; the "B" standard was 15.10. Francisco finished 6^th in the 100 with a time of 11.48. 

Senior David Croom (Heath, OH) had a busy afternoon as he competed in three events for Rio Grande. He was 4^th in the javelin throw (145 feet, two inches), 6^th in the shot put (40 feet, nine inches), and 11^th in the discus throw (97 feet, one inch). 

At Duke on Sunday, junior distance runner Nick Wilson (Barlow, OH) finished a solid 12^th in the 5,000-meter run, covering the distance in 15:23.22 and junior distance runner Bryce Wilson (Jackson, OH) ran 18^th in the 1,500 meters (4:00.87).

Rio Grande is not shutout of the national meet however, as senior Kyle Hively (Vinton, OH) hit the qualifying mark in the 5,000-meter race walk last week at the Mid-South Conference Meet. Hively will represent Rio Grande at the NAIA Outdoor National Championships, May 26-28 in Marian, Ind. 

"Matt Boyles did a great job with Kyle last year and really got his base underneath him and he had a lot of miles," said Willey. "So this year, all we did was shorter intervals and turnover and his speed has gotten a lot better. He's had some outstanding workouts and then about a month ago was injured and we just had to put him in the pool and on the bike."

"Our training staff has done a wonderful job in trying to get him back," Willey added. "He was able to come out and perform. He didn't do as well as he wanted to, but when you really haven't been able to practice much, in last two weeks we got a few workouts in and he was fortunate to be able to perform as well as he did; he walked very well."

Hively also qualified for the US Track & Field Championships, which will be held in Eugene, Ore. in late June. 

"Overall, we had some good performances, the young men and young ladies trained hard and gave it their best shot," Willey said. 

There is one more week in which athletes have the chance to qualify for a spot in the nationals. It is unclear at this time whether any Rio athletes will take that opportunity.