Senior Jean-Marie Peterson and junior Sylvia Veal, both finished in the top 10 and advanced to the 1,500 meter finals at the Pac-10 Track and Field Championships on Friday evening at Joe Selleh Track at Sun Angel Stadium, Arizona State University.
Peterson led all three entries with a seventh overall finish in 4:29.05 with Veal close behind in ninth in a time of 4:29.19. Junior Holly Thomson finished 19th in 4:36.85.
Peterson’s time was a new personal record and automatically qualified after finishing fourth in the second heat, while Veal was the first qualifier out of the second heat.
But in the finals, an unfortunate fall late in the race had the two finish 10th and 11th, respectively, in the Pac-10 Track and Field Championships in the 1,500 meters Saturday evening at Joe Sellah Track at Sun Angel Stadium.
“Jean-Marie and Sylvia both went down really hard, and it’s horribly unfortunate for both of them as they both felt great and it was obvious they had a ton of run in them tonight,” head coach Kelly Sullivan said. “In all my years, I have never seen two teammates have this happen. They got up, shook it off and over the next 200 meters found some sense of form. I’m proud of them both, and it was not easy for sure.”
With about 600 meters to go, a sudden change of pace caused a chain reaction, pulling Peterson and Veal down, but the two still managed to catch back up with Alex Kosinski of Oregon. Both runners were physically fine after the spill.
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