Freshman Tara Chaplin earned All-America honors in the women's 10,000m by finishing ninth. Chaplin stayed with the lead pack for the first 12 laps before falling back some, finishing in a time of 34:52.96. Leigh Daniel of Texas Tech ran to an improbable victory in 34:01.53. The Red Raider junior lost her shoe on the fourth lap, had to put it back on, fell back of the leaders by almost a half-lap before regaining first.

"That was only the second 10,000 meters that Tara has ever run, and she did a good job in the race," said Arizona director of track and field Dave Murray. "It looked like she was going to be able to stay with the leaders for a little while, but she still ran a good time."

Chaplin added, "I felt very comfortable in the beginning of the race and did not have a lot of trouble until the middle of the race. I started to get tired and fall back, but I was able to pick it up a little at the end."

Wildcat junior Carolyn Jackson just missed advancing to the Saturday's finals of the 400m. Running for the first time since suffering a severe hamstring in the preliminaries of the Pacific-10 Conference Championships, May 21. Jackson finished second in her heat, but her time of 53.83 was the ninth fastest of the three heats, less than 0.30 seconds off the eighth and final time that qualified for the finals. Jackson did, however, earn All-America honors for her effort.

"Although she did not make it to the finals, it shows that Carolyn is a very competitive person," Murray said. "After what happened to her, being injured so badly, at the Pac-10 meet, we did not think she would even run here, but she gutted it out and ran a very good race."

The Arizona men did not have any competitors today, but will be in several events Friday. Esko Mikkola and Ola Larsen will compete in the javelin, while Patrick Nduwimana runs in the 800m finals, Jeff Dutoit competes in the pole vault and Abdi Abdirahman and Micheil Jones compete in the 5,000m.