Woodrow Wilson graduate Dennisha Page, a senior at Tennessee, easily advanced in both the 100- and 200-meter dashes Thursday at the NCAA Division 1 Championships East First Round at the University of Kentucky in Lexington.
Page ran 11.12 to win her heat of the 100 and 22.70 to place 2nd in a virtual tie in her heat of the 200 and automatically advance to the NCAA quarterfinals on Saturday in both sprints.
Page will race in the 100 quarterfinal at 6:35 p.m. Saturday and the 200 at 7:50 p.m.
The East Region meet is being held concurrently with the West Region meet in Fayetteville, Ark. The top 12 finishers in each event at each regional advance to the semifinals at the NCAA Championships June 5-8 in Eugene, Ore.
In the 100, Page ran 11.12, the 5th-fastest time among 48 qualifiers and only 2-100ths of a second off her lifetime-best 11.10 from the SEC Championships in Gainesville, Fla. She easily won the second of six heats, and she did it with a legal 0.3 meters-per-second tailwind.
In the 200, she posted the 6th-fastest qualifying time, finishing 3-1,000ths of a second behind Florida State’s Dajaz Defrand in the 3rd of six heats. Since the top three in each race automatically advance regardless of time, it didn’t matter whether Page finished ahead of Defrand or not. Defrand was officially timed in 22.692, Page in 22.695. Page’s PR is 22.39 earlier this month, also at the SEC Championships.
The Rutgers transfer is 15th-fastest American this year in the 100 and ranked No. 29 in the world. She’s 4th-fastest in New Jersey history. She’s 10th-fastest American woman in the 200 and 14th-fastest in the world and 3rd-fastest in New Jersey history.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 