ANGOLA, Ind.-- Trine's Tyler Bourdo and Kara Eck will compete in the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field National Championships this weekend.
Bourdo (Plainwell, Mich./Delton-Kellogg) will be seeking a third outdoor All-America honor in the 400-meter dash. The senior will be making his third-consecutive trip to the outdoor national meet. Eck (Auburn, Ind./DeKalb) will be making her first trip to the outdoor national championships and will be competing in the hammer throw. The championships are being hosted by St. Lawrence University at Merrick-Pinkard Track and Field Complex in Canton, N.Y. Events are slated to begin Thursday and conclude Saturday.
Bourdo enters the national championship meet seeded 15th in the 400-meter dash, based on his season-best time of 47.92 seconds. The senior ran that time at Grand Valley State University's Al Owens Open on April 18. Bourdo was named MIAA Most Valuable Track Athlete for the second-time in his career this season after having a hand in four first-place finishes at the conference championship meet.
The national championships will be the final event in a career that has seen Bourdo earn All-America honors four times in the 400-meter dash. He has two All-America honors in both the indoor and outdoor seasons. Bourdo is the only four-time All-American on record in any sport in school history.
Eck will be seeded 17th in the hammer throw entering the national meet. Eck's season-best throw of 169 feet, 1 inch (51.53 meters) came May 6 in the Hillsdale Last Chance Classic. The throw set a new school-record. Eck has also picked up All-MIAA honors and a three-time winner of the MIAA Field Athlete of the Week award.
The trip to the national championships will cap off a freshman season that saw Eck earn All-America honors in the weight throw during the indoor season, placing sixth in the nation. In her debut campaign, Eck set school-records in the weight throw, shot put and hammer throw.
The hammer throw championships will begin Friday at 3 p.m. Preliminaries of the 400-meter dash will be held Friday at 6 p.m. The top eight runners advance to the championship race Saturday at 2:25 p.m.