Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell Track & Field's Folger, Siegrist, Joseph Return to NCAA East Prelims
5/21/2012 8:00:00 AM | Men's Track and Field
May 21, 2012
Note: Tayler Siegrist became a late accepted entry to the women's javelin on Monday afternoon.
LEWISBURG, Pa. - Just three Bison remain in a successful outdoor track and field season as Bucknell's Kat Folger (Groton, Mass./Bishop Guertin), Tayler Siegrist (Madison, N.J./Madison) and Leonard Joseph (Whitesboro, N.Y./Clinton) will compete at this week's NCAA East Preliminaries. The trio, which qualified for the national prelims a second consecutive year by posting one of the top marks in the East Region this spring, will compete May 24-25 in Jacksonville, Fla. First up are Folger and Siegrist in the javelin at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday. Joseph will follow at 10 a.m. on Friday in the hammer throw. Live results and a webcast will be available at unfospreys.com.
For the second straight season, Folger, Siegrist and Joseph earned spots among the region's 48 qualifiers for the preliminary rounds of the NCAA Championships. The top 12 in each event will advance to the NCAA Championship finals in early June.
WOMEN'S JAVELIN - FOLGER & SIEGRIST
- Folger and Siegrist will compete in the javelin at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday. Ranked 12th in the East, Folger is 38th nationally. Siegrist, who qualified for the NCAA East Preliminaries due to medical scratches from other competitors, is 59th in the East.
- Folger earned her No. 12 ranking with a career-best throw of 156 feet, 6 inches. The mark came at the Bucknell Team Challenge in late April, where she finished second overall. The throw also gave her the No. 3 position in the program record books.
- Folger has competed just four times this spring. She opened her season with a third-place finish at the Colonial Relays (143-10), then finished second at the Bucknell Team Challenge (156-6), first at the Patriot League Championships (145-7) and, mostly recently, second at the ECAC Championships (152-9) where she claimed the first All-East citation of her career.
- With her win at the Patriot League Championships, Folger became just the third Bison in program history to take gold in the javelin at the conference meet. She follows Laura Rycek (2011) and Beverly Rogers (2008).
- With her top mark of 156-6, Folger is third all-time at Bucknell and is just over two feet away from the school record. Rycek currently holds the leading distance at 158-7, while Rogers is second at 157-3. Siegrist is currently fourth (144-1).
- Siegrist's top mark of the 2012 season came at the Bison Outdoor Classic where she finished third with a throw of 141-8. The junior has five top-10 finishes this season.
- Most recently, Siegrist just missed out on scoring with an eight-place performance at the Patriot League Championships (199-9). She also placed 14th at the ECAC Championships with a throw of 134-10.
- The women's javelin at the 2012 East Preliminaries will be a youthful affair. Folger was one of just eight seniors and only 15 upperclassmen in the original field of 48 throwers. The top-seeded competitor, Jenna Wargo of Louisville, is a sophomore as she enters the meet with a top throw of 170-9.
- Folger was 45th at last year's prelims with a throw of 117-1. Penn State's Karlee McQuillen won the event at 172-2. The last out of the region to qualify for the finals in Des Moines was Alabama's Meghan Austin with a throw of 151-4.
- Folger was one of three Bison to compete in the javelin at last spring's East Preliminaries. She was joined by Rycek, who placed 11th and eventually went on to a 23rd-place finish at the NCAA Championships, and Siegrist, who was 42nd.
- Siegrist threw a personal-best 144-1 to take third place at the 2011 Patriot League Championships. A few weeks later, she was at the NCAA East Preliminaries where her throw of 126-9 earned her 42nd. She was one of 10 sophomores competing in the javelin last spring.
- Folger and Siegrist are the eighth and ninth Bison on the women's side to qualify for the NCAA prelims more than once. Of those nine, eight competed in field events and six of them were in the throws. The most recent multi-year qualifiers have all been javelin throwers - Rycek (2008, 2010-11) and Rogers (2007-08) as well as Siegrist and Folger (2011-12). The list of multi-year qualifiers also includes Marjorie Grap (2006-07; hammer, discus), Melanie Buczko (2004-07, pole vault), Amy Mantush (2007, 2009; high jump), Maria Garcia (2003-04, hammer) and Christa Sawko (2006-07, 800 meters). Sawko also qualified in the 1,500 meters in 2007.
- Bucknell has had three national qualifiers outdoors. Buczko and Garcia qualified in the pole vault and hammer, respectively, in 2004, while Rycek advanced last spring in the javelin.
MEN'S HAMMER THROW - JOSEPH
- Joseph will compete in the hammer throw at 10 a.m. on Friday. Ranked No. 15 in the East, he is 26th nationally.
- Joseph has enjoyed an upward trajectory all spring in the hammer throw. In his first meet of the season - the Colonial Relays - the junior threw a then-career-best 194-2, placing second overall and maintaining his No. 5 spot in the Bucknell record books. In the next meet, he again posted his best mark at the time, placing second at the Bison Outdoor Classic with a throw of 200-1. His first time at better than 200 feet moved him into fourth in the program record books. Then it was up to No. 3 all-time at Bucknell with a throw of 204-5 at the Team Challenge, which he won. At the Penn Relays Championship Division, Joseph was fifth (199-2), after which he returned to the top of the winner's podium at the Patriot League Championships. He claimed his second career conference gold with the best mark of his career at 206-3, a distance that ranks his second in program annals. Most recently, Joseph was third at the IC4A Championships (204-4).
- This spring, Joseph has been named the Patriot League Field Athlete of the Week three times, defended his Patriot League hammer title and named All-East for the second time in his career.
- In early May, Joseph won Bucknell's sixth conference hammer title in program history. He joins Paul Austin (1991), Ryan Stairs (2001), Don Frake (2006) and Tyler Hoffman (2007). Joseph also took gold in the event in 2011, making him Bucknell's first multi-year winner in the event. He is also the fifth hammer thrower in the Patriot League to win the title more than once.
- Unlike the women's javelin at the 2012 East Preliminaries, the men's hammer field has plenty of experience. Of the 48-man field, 32 are juniors or seniors. Despite the high number of veterans, the top seed is a sophomore. Princeton's Conor McCullough enters the weekend with the region's top throw of 242-9. The second seed is Junior Alexander Ziegler of Virginia Tech, who finished as the 2011 national champion. Ziegler's winning throw a year ago was 238-6. He enters this weekend with a top mark of 240-0.
- Joseph placed 37th at the 2011 NCAA East Preliminaries with a throw of 183-0, although he entered the meet with a then-career-best 193-9.
- Including Joseph, Bucknell has had nine student-athletes qualify multiple times for the NCAA Regionals since the championships took on a preliminary format. Seven of the nine competed in field events, and five of them were throwers. Of Bucknell's 11 National Championship qualifiers, however, only two were in the field events while eight were distance runners. The Bison's lone championship came courtesy of Thomas McLean in the 800 meters in 1976.
- Joseph is the third Bison to qualify for the NCAA prelims in the hammer throw on the men's side. He joins Dan Frake (2006) and Tyler Hoffman (2006-07).
- Joseph will be the subject of a feature in an upcoming Bison Magazine. The video piece will be coming soon to BucknellBison.com.
LOOKING AHEAD
Should any of the Bison trio advance to the NCAA Championships, they will compete June 6-9 in Des Moines, Iowa.
