Preview Interview with Coach Marlo Mincey  
2014 NCAA East Regional Track & Field Schedule (PDF)
2014 NCAA East Regional Heat Sheets

Events for Georgia Southern
Jasmin Walker -- Long Jump -- 6:30 Thursday (first round)
Aarian Tipton -- 200m -- 8:25 p.m. Friday (first round)
4x100m Relay -- 6:15 p.m. Saturday (quarterfinal) -- Alyssa Felton, Jasmin Walker, Aarian Tipton, Jordan Fordham

STATESBORO, Ga. -- Four members of the Georgia Southern Track and Field team will compete in three events at the NCAA East Regional Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Hodges Stadium in Jacksonville, Florida, this weekend. In addition to the University-record setting 4x100m Relay team of Alyssa Felton, Jasmin Walker, Aarian Tipton and Jordan Fordham, two Eagles will each participate in an individual event. The total number of competitors (6) and events (3) at this year's regionals both rank as the most in program history.
 
The NCAA Division I East Preliminary Track & Field Round will be held at Hodges Stadium at the University of North Florida, a site at which the Eagles competed in March. Walker will compete in the Long Jump on the first day, Thursday, May 29th and Tipton in the 200m at 8:25 p.m. Friday, May 30th. The 4X100m Relay is scheduled for 6:15 p.m. on Saturday, May 31st.

Winner of three straight conference outdoor Long Jump titles, junior Jasmin Walker begins the historic weekend on the University of North Florida campus Thursday evening with the first of four flights beginning at 6:30 p.m. Walker added 0.2 meters to her SoCon championship distance at the Georgia Tech Invitational. Senior Aarian Tipton, who broke the Eagles' 200m Dash record at the SoCon Championships will attempt to better her time and qualify for the next round with her race set to go off at 8:25 p.m. Friday.
 
"This is really exciting, right now, we are trying to calm everyone down, this being the first time in a long while -- almost 10 years – we are competing at the regionals," said Head Track and Field Coach Marlo Mincey." They know they are making history. We're trying to settle down and do what we can do. We're not trying to go there and do anything we haven't done all year. I've been saying this throughout the postseason, if we just do what we did to get there, we'll be just fine." 
 
Tipton's trip to the NCAA East Regional meet is the first for an Eagle in the 200m event since 2003 when Giselle Cunningham set the then-University record with a time of 23.98. Walker, who brings a 6.14m Long Jump distance, second all time in program history, and the 4x100m Relay will be making first-ever appearances for Georgia Southern in those events.
 
"We have earned our opportunity there," Mincey commented. "This is a highly intense environment and there are going to be some top athletes there, but no one we haven't seen already. The East Region is tough, we have seen it year after year trying to get here, but again, we've earned our spot here. We belong here and all we have to do is do what we have been doing."

During both the indoor and outdoor seasons, the Eagles competed against top competition against teams from the nation's best track and field conferences. Georgia Southern's student-athletes will start side-by-side this weekend against those they have seen at meets earlier this year.

"We started off with the goal of gearing our schedule around high competition so when this point came, it won't be a shock to us," Mincey said. "Year after year we try and compete against the best, so coming to regionals will be like an everyday meet. We think we have done a good job of that throughout the season, and I really think they are ready."
The qualifiers in each individual event and the relays in both the East and West Regions advance to the NCAA national championships June 11-14 in Eugene, Oregon.

"This is where we want to see the program going," Mincey said. "It's been our goal to do something we haven't done and not just become a competitive team, but become a nationally competitive team. They have started that --- they started the trend, not just being competitive in the conference, but being competitive in the region, and hopefully, be competitive in the nation."

EAGLE TRACK & FIELD NOTES 
SIX OF ONE, HALF DOZEN OF THE OTHER
Six Eagles competing in at the NCAA East Regionals rank as the most-ever to qualify with Georgia Southern represented in three events, also a program high.

LAST TIME OUT
Jasmin Walker improved her career best mark in the Long Jump to 6.14m (20'-1.75"), good for second on the Eagles' all-time list, at the Georgia Tech Invitational the weekend of May 16-17th. The Eagle 4x100m posted its second-best time of the season at that meet and all four Eagles also participated in the 100m race. For Tipton, who walked at Georgia Southern University's Commencement ceremony May 10, it was her first 200m race since breaking the University record at SoCon Championships.

MOST OUTSTANDING
Walker was named the SoCon's Most Outstanding Performer and Most Outstanding Track Athlete after all-conference honors in the 100m and 200m races in addition to her Long Jump and 4x100m Relay titles. Based on those accolades, she was named the Track Athlete of the Month for April.

FOURTH TIME IS THE CHARM
This will be the fourth trip for the Track and Field Eagles into the state of Florida. Georgia Southern spent three straight weekends in the Sunshine State, at the Florida State Relays, the UNF Spring Break Invitational at Hodges Stadium, the site of this NCAA East Regional and the Florida Relays.

LAST TIME IN THE 200m
Giselle Cunningham's University record in the 200m Dash set at the 2003 NCAA East Regionals stood for four years, but she holds the distinction of being the last Eagle to compete in this event at the NCAAs. Until now. Tipton, who qualified and broke the University record last held by Nicole Brown (2007), decided to continue with this individual event. Tipton ran a 23.59 in the SoCon final to trim .22 seconds off the previous program best.

FIRST TIME FOR TWO EVENTS
Georgia Southern's appearance in the Long Jump and the 4x100m Relay mark the first time that an Eagle will compete in those events at the NCAA East Regionals. The 4x100m Relay team brings a No. 9 regional ranking to Jacksonville.

FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING
If Georgia Southern advances to the NCAA Championships in all three or any of the events this weekend, it will be the first time in Track and Field program history.

LONG JUMP LEGACY
With her third-straight SoCon Outdoor Long Jump championship, Jasmin Walker helped the Eagle winning streak in that event extend to 10 straight Georgia Southern victories. Walker is a two-time Indoor champion as well to bring her conference total to five in her three years of collegiate competition. Alyssa Felton, the lead leg of the Eagle 4x100m, won the SoCon indoor Long Jump title in 2013, keeping it in the Georgia Southern family.
RECORD-SETTING PERFORMANCE
Georgia Southern's 4x100m Relay team won the 2013 SoCon title, but missed setting the conference record by two hundreths of a second. The Eagles were not going to let that opportunity pass them by this year. Conference champions aren't guaranteed a spot at the regionals, so Georgia Southern smashed both the SoCon and University record with a 44.50 time to take home the hardware AND qualify for the 2014 NCAA East Regionals.

FAST IN THE TOP FIVE
Both Tipton and Walker are ranked in the both the 100 and 200m Dash events. Tipton owns the record in the 200m (23.59) with Walker in the number-two spot at 23.68. In the 100m, Walker's 11.69 at SoCon placed her in second place with Tipton in third at 11.70. Nicole Brown holds the top time in the 100m Dash at 11.51 in 2007.

HODGES STADIUM HISTORY
The Eagles had a number of solid times at Hodges Stadium at the end of March at the UNF Spring Break Invitational, however two wind-aided marks could not be considered for personal bests.  Gusts of +2.3 to +3.0 were measured during the sprints of Jordan Fordham (100m) and Aarian Tipton (200m), negating their best times of the season to that point . Tipton, Fordham and Felton came back on day two in the finals of the 100m for spots one, two and four, respectively, in that race.

I-10 CONNECTION
Both the Georgia Southern Baseball team, dramatic winners of the 2014 SoCon title, and the Eagles competing in Track and Field bring their postseason efforts to the state of Florida. The Eagle Baseball team meets Florida State Friday night at 6 p.m. at the Tallahassee Regional.

HOLD THE "E" PLEASE
Hold off on adding the "e" or use the backspace key to delete it, as Jasmin Walker's first name does not have an "e" at the end of it.

EVENTS & PRONUNCIATIONS
Eagle                                     Event(s)                                           Pronunciation
Alyssa Felton                        Lead leg 4x100m                            Ah-liss-ah Fell-TON
Jordan Fordham                  Anchor leg 4x100m                        Jordan FORD-ham
Aarian Tipton                        200m, Third leg                               Air-ee-on TIP-ton
Jasmin Walker                      Long Jump, Second Leg               Jasmine Walker

Georgia Southern Athletics provides up-to-date information on all its sports through its official website, GSEagles.com, through social media channels facebook.com/GSAthletics, twitter.com/GSAthletics, iOS appGeorgia Southern Eagles and Android app Eagles GATA. Eagle fans can follow the results and record-breaking performances on twitter @GSAthletics_TF.