If you were to draw up the game plan for one week out from the NCAA Championships, you could look to Divya Biswal’s performance at the ECAC Division III Championships at Springfield College in Massachusetts. The St. Lawrence University senior got things off on the right foot Thursday, with a commanding victory in the triple jump as well as a new personal best in 100m hurdles qualifying.
Starting in her speciality, the triple jump, Divya wasted no time displaying her championship ready form as she bounded out to a seasonal best 12.31m. It would turn out this was more than enough to secure victory, but that didn’t stop her from improving on each of the next two jumps – pushing her seasonal best out to 12.42m and move in two second into the NCAA Division III rankings.
She would keep the good times rolling right into the 100m hurdle preliminaries as she sped to victory in heat two with a new lifetime best of 14.54 seconds. At this point, the time ranks her 22nd in the NCAA, and puts her in a qualifying position for nationals.
On the second day of competition, Divya returned to capture her second gold with a leap of 5.66m in the long jump and would wrap up her championship with a fourth place finish in the 100m hurdles. In total, Biswal accumulated 25 of St. Lawrence’s 45.5, leading them to a third place finish overall.
In other championship action, Matt Bedard put up a big personal best in qualifying for the 400m hurdles at the Summit League Championships with a time of 52.92 seconds. The performance moves him to 8th all-time in club history, but also makes him the number one junior ranked 400m hurdler in Canada and also exceeds the qualifying standard for this summer’s Pan American Junior Championships.
In the final, Bedard was in the lead before struggling with hurdle nine. However, he would finish strong, posting the second best of his life with 53.13 seconds. He would pick up a silver medal as part of North Dakota State’s 4x400m relay and a Summit League team title – the sixth straight for North Dakota State.
