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Sports Recap
Track and Field
Esler, Laske and Olson to compete at NCAA championships
For the first time in its history, UB sent three student-athletes to the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Outdoor Track and Field Championships. Seniors Allison Laske (800-meters), Laura Olson (pole vault) and Steve Esler (decathlon) are representing the Bulls at the national meet, which began yesterday and will run through Saturday in Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas.
Laske is making her first appearance in the NCAA Championships after finishing fourth in the 800-meters at the NCAA East Regional in a time of 2:07.05. Her school record and regional qualifying time of 2:04.81, set at the Stanford Cardinal Invitational on April 30, is the 10th-fastest time in the championship field. That mark also was an Olympic Trial B Cut time.
The most-experienced NCAA participant in the group, Olson earned her third career trip to the NCAA Championships with a third-place finish in the pole vault at the East Regional. Olson set a school record and an NCAA East Regional record by clearing 13-5.75" (4.11m) in the event, tying for first in height but finishing third based on number of misses. That height is tied for 11th among the NCAA participants. Olson finished 13th at the outdoor national championships last year, clearing 13-1.5" and she placed 14th at the NCAA Indoor Championships earlier this year.
Esler earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Championships for the first time in his career after provisionally qualifying with a point total of 7,306 at the Hillsdale Gina Relays in late April. The decathlon was not contested at the NCAA East Regional, but Esler's point total—24th in the nation—was good enough to make the 26-person championship field. Esler is UB's first male track athlete to qualify for the NCAA Championships.
The top eight American finishers in each event at the NCAA Championships earn All-American status, an achievement that a UB track-and-field athlete has earned once before, when Shelly Hamilton finished eighth in the high jump in 1998.
Basketball
WOMEN'S
Dozier signs four more players
Head women's basketball coach Cheryl Dozier has announced the signing of four student-athletes to National Letters of Intent to continue their athletic and academic careers at UB, beginning in the fall. They are Heather Turner of West Seneca and Mount Mercy Academy; Barbora Homolova of Ceska Lipa, Czech Republic; Diana Orozco Gollaz of León Guanajuato, Mexico, and Flynn Pyykkonen of Clarkston, Mich. The Bulls' incoming class now is up to five players, including Stephanie Bennett of Springfield, Ohio, a 5-10 guard and younger sister of current player Allison Bennett, who was an early signee back in November.
Turner, the Buffalo News Western New York High School Player of the Year, is the first local player Dozier has signed to a National Letter of Intent in her tenure at UB. She is a 6-0 post player. Homolova is a 6-3 freshman post player who has played on the Czech Junior National Team for the past two years, while Orozco Gollaz is a 5-10 freshman guard who competed with Mexico's National Team—along with former UB standout Sonia Ortega—that placed fourth in the Pre-Olympic Games in Mexico last September. Pyykkonen is a 5-11 freshman guard/forward who helped lead her high school team to two Catholic League Championship and State Class A District Championship titles.