Jewel Ash advanced to the second round in the intermediate hurdles Thursday at the NCAA Eastern Preliminary meet in Bloomington, Ind.
Ash, an Eastern grad and sophomore at Charleston Southern, ran 58.29 and comfortably advanced to the quarterfinals.The top three finishers in each of six heats along with the next six-fastest runners from all the heats advanced to the next round.
Ash placed second in the fifth race, behind only Uniondale, N.Y., native Asia Jinks of Auburn, who ran 58.09.
The quarterfinals are scheduled for 7:25 p.m. Saturday, and the 12-fastest from those races will advance to the NCAA Championships along with the top 12 from the West Regional in Fayetteville.
Ash’s time was 11th-best Thursday. Her PR is 57.16 from the semifinals of the Big South Championships earlier this month in High Point, N.C.
If Ash is one of the top 12 on Saturday, she’ll race at 7:30 p.m. June 9 in the semifinals at the NCAA Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore. The final is scheduled for 3:57 p.m. June 11.
Ash’s younger sister, Jailya, a freshman at UConn, ran 13.73 in the first round of the 100-meter hurdles at the same meet. She missed qualifying for the second round by 18-100ths of a second. She was the 5th-fastest freshman in the field.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 