Westfield State seniors Lauren Gilderdale (Great Barrington, Mass.) and William Canty (S. Grafton, Mass./Grafton) were announced as accepted entries for the 2020 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships.
Gilderdale qualified 17th on the 20 competitor list for the women's 20-lb. weight throw. She has a top performance this season of 17.25 meters. It's the first time she has qualified for the national championship meet.
Canty is ninth on the performance list in the heptathlon, based on a school record performance he recently turned in at the New England Championships. A field of 20 men will compete in the event.
Canty qualified for the indoor meet for the first time. The multi-event athlete was an All-American in the decathlon at last year's NCAA Outdoor Championship meet, where he finished seventh.
Competition begins on Friday for Canty at 11:00 a.m., while the women's weight throw is the first event on the competition slate, beginning at 10:00 a.m. on Friday.
The meet will be held at the JDL Fast Track, in Winston-Salem, N.C. The The dedicated indoor track and field facility, which opened in January 2012, houses a 200-meter oval track with a Mondotrack FTX surface—the same surface that was used at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
The top eight individual finishers in each event earn All-America Honors.
The full performance lists and more information about the meet are available at https://tf.deltatiming.com/ncaa/2020-ncaa-d3-indoor-championships