Brooke Pleger Finishes Third At NCAA Nationals

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Eugene, Ore. – Bowling Green State University redshirt junior Brooke Pleger added another chapter to her storied career Wednesday, finishing third in the hammer throw at the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field National Championships. It is the best finish at the national championships in BGSU women's track and field history.

"I'm proud of Brooke," BGSU coach Lou Snelling said. "To come to this site and to perform at that level, it's exciting. She proved once again that you can come to Bowling Green and compete on this scale."

Pleger improved from seventh place a year ago and becomes just the second individual in program history to score (top eight) in two different years. She is the first back-to-back All-American since Beth Manson in the discus in 1988 and 1989.

Prior to this year, the best BGSU finish in the women's national championships was sixth place by Manson in the discus in 1989 and by Huina Han in the triple jump in 1998. Deb Romsek finish fourth at the AIAW Collegiate National Championship in 1976, prior to the NCAA sanctioning women's track and field.

The top four seeds entering the meet all finished in the top four, led by Princeton sophomore Julia Ratcliffe. Ratcliffe entered the meet as the top seed and was undefeated on the year. She won the national championship with a throw of 219-feet-5. Colorado senior Emily Hunsucker jumped from the fourth seed to finish second at 212-8. Pleger was third at 211-6 and Akron senior Brittany Funk finished fourth at 210-11.

The third-place finish was not only the best in BGSU women's track and field history but was the best showing across all varsity sports at BGSU in a national championship event since Marny Oestreng won a gymnastics national championship in the floor exercise in 1999. The only other individual national championships in BGSU history came from men's track and field stars Sid Sink (1970 and 1971 steeplechase national champion) and Dave Wottle (1972 and 1973 in the 1500).

With the 24-person field split into two random flights, Ratcliffe and Hunsucker opened things up in the first flight. Ratcliffe set the pace early with a throw of 214-6 in the opening flight and Hunsucker was right behind at 211-11.

Once the second flight began, Pleger quickly established herself with an opening throw of 205-6 to position herself in fifth place. She climbed two spots on her second toss with her meet-best throw of 211-6. On her last throw before finals, Pleger went 211-1 and easily qualified for the nine-person finals.

After fouling on her fourth throw, Pleger threw 204-5 and 203-5 on her last two tosses to complete her performance at the championships.

"She handled the pressures of the meet really well today," BGSU throws coach Matt Conly said. "You can see with the results that a lot of kids were under where they were at most of the year. Being able to navigate the pressure is a lot of what it means to be successful at this meet and Brooke was able to do that today."

With the finish, Pleger concludes a fantastic junior season that included five regular season meet championships and three stadium records. She also won the Mid-American Conference title for the second consecutive season, breaking her own meet record in the process at 218-feet-9. She set a personal best of 223-0 late in the year that ranked No. 2 in the country.

Bowling Green ends the opening day of competition at the NCAA championships with six team points, putting the Falcons in a tie for ninth place. That is tied for most among MAC schools. Miami also recorded six points on the first day of competition and Akron closed with five points.

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