Nelson, Smith reach regional finals

~ The Redhawks will compete in six events today.

The magic distance for the Southeast track team on Friday was 400 meters.

Senior hurdler Alonzo Nelson and junior sprinting standout Miles Smith qualified for the finals of their events at the NCAA Mideast Regional in Knoxville, Tenn. Nelson ran the day's second-best time in the 400 hurdles, while Smith won his heat in the open 400.

Nelson finished his preliminary race in 50.79 seconds. He was second in his heat behind LSU's Isa Phillips, who had the top time of 50.61. Eight runners made the finals from a field of 24 athletes.

Smith, the defending regional champion and a fifth-place finisher in the NCAA championships, posted a time of 46.47 seconds to win his heat, one of six preliminaries. He posted the fourth-fastest time of the 33 competitors vying for eight spots in the finals.

David Neville Jr. of Indiana had the top time of 46.0, followed by LSU's Reginald Dardar (46.08) and LSU's Melville Rogers (46.31).

In addition to Nelson and Smith, other entries competing today for Southeast will be the men's 1,600-meter relay team, Kevin McNab in the 3,000 steeplechase, Bilal Hameed in the men's triple jump and Heather Jenkins in the women's discus.

Southeast had two other competitors on Friday.

John Berry covered 23 feet, 5 1/4 inches in the men's long jump to finish 28th of 32 competitors.

Lindsay Zeiler was ninth in her preliminary heat in the women's 1,500. Her time of 4:39.43 was 16th-best out of 19 runners and not good enough to reach the final.

The top five finishers from each regional event qualify automatically for the national championships June 5 through 8 in Sacramento, Calif.