ENMU's Briska 14th in prelims

PUEBLO, Colo. — Eastern New Mexico University sophomore Kaspars Briska finished 14th overall in Thursday's preliminaries of the 3,000-meter steeplechase in the NCAA Division II national outdoor track meet, hosted by Colorado State-Pueblo.

Briska, who had a top time coming in of 9 minutes, 4.71 seconds, finished in 9:37.34 on Thursday. He needed to make the top 12 out of 20 entrants to advance to today's 7:35 p.m. final. All of the runners were well off their top times.

ENMU's second entrant in the nationals, sophomore Alesha Jones, is scheduled to run in the women's 800 prelims at 6 p.m. today. The top nine of 22 entrants in that event move on to the finals, scheduled for 6;55 p.m. on Saturday.

The top four runner in each of the two heats in the steeplechase automatically qualified for the finals, along with the four next-best times. The top five times were all in Heat 1, led by sophomore Adam Sinda of Western State (Colo.) with a time of 9:20.13.

Briska finished eighth in Heat 2. The final qualifier was West Texas A&M sophomore Dylan Doss, who ran a time of 9:28.21 and was sixth in the second heat.