Sally Ceesay placed eighth in the triple jump at the NCAA Championships on May 28, 2016. (D3Photography)
WAVERLY, Iowa -- The Bates women's track and field team concluded the season by scoring in two events within minutes of one another at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships, as junior Allison Hill placed seventh in the 100-meter hurdles and sophomore Sally Ceesay placed eighth in the triple jump.
Ceesay and Hill's combined three points put Bates in a six-way tie for 68th place out of 85 teams that scored points in the meet. Fifty-eight other schools participated but did not score.
Hill (Brunswick, Maine) claimed her first career All-America honor in her second career NCAA Championship appearance, finishing seventh out of eight finalists in a headwind-altered 14.45 seconds. Originally seeded eighth in the event, Hill ran the sixth-fastest time in Friday's trials, at 14.33. In March, Hill placed ninth in the 60-meter hurdles at the NCAA Indoor Championships, shut out of the finals by 0.01 seconds.
Ceesay, competing for the first time since April 30 due to her Short Term class trip to London, erased any concerns about rust on her first attempt, covering 38 feet and 11 inches, the second best attempt of her career and just a half-inch short of her Bates record.
On her third attempt, Ceesay soared another four centimeters, breaking her own Bates record and clearing the 39-foot mark for the first time at 39-0.5. Ceesay ranked eighth going into the nine-woman finals and remained in eighth with no improvement. She was three centimeters shy of seventh-place Chloe Rogers of Williams, and nine centimeters ahead of ninth-place Kaitlin McCoubrie of Gettysburg.
It is Ceesay's second career All-America honor in her third career NCAA Championship appearance. She also placed eighth at the NCAA Indoor Championships in March.
Ceesay and Hill are the 12th and 13th outdoor All-Americans in Bates women's track and field history. They are also the first student-athletes in program history to earn All-America honors in their two particular events.
Friday Recap
Hill ran the sixth-fastest time in a field of 20 athletes in the 100-meter hurdles trials on Friday at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships, advancing to Saturday's finals.
Hill's hometown friend and teammate, senior Alexis Dickinson (Brunswick, Maine), finished her outstanding career on Friday in the 100-meter dash trials, missing Saturday's finals and placing 22nd with a time of 12.45 seconds. Dickinson's senior outdoor season included setting the team record in the 100 (12.14 seconds) and competing in her first NCAA Championship.
Despite running into a headwind, Hill ran the second-fastest time of her career at 14.33 seconds, placing second in the second of three trial heats.
Thursday Recap
Bates junior Jessica Wilson (Cumberland, Maine) placed 18th out of 22 runners in the women's 1,500-meter run on Thursday, the first day of the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Wartburg College.
Wilson, the 17th seed in the field based on the 4:32.92 time she raced at last week's ECAC Championship, completed Thursday's first trial heat in 4:42.99. The one-time All-American in the indoor distance medley relay made her third career NCAA Championship appearance and her first as an individual.
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