Meet Schedule | Live Results
PORTLAND – Senior thrower
Sean MacKelvie will compete Thursday, June 7 in the men's javelin national final at the 2012 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championship. The men's javelin will begin at 12:30 p.m. PDT at Drake Stadium in Des Moines, Iowa.
MacKelvie becomes just the second Portland State track & field male student-athlete, and fifth overall, to advance to the NCAA Outdoor Championship during the Vikings' Division I era. Nick Trubachik became an All-American in the decathlon at the 2010 NCAA Outdoor Championships.
“Sean making it to this point shows how incredibly patient he was throughout the fall season,” head track and field coach
Ronnye Harrison said. “The triple jump kept him busy during the first part of the year but then he kicked it in with the javelin this spring.”
The Wilsonville, Ore. native posted impressive throws over the final two weeks of the regular season earning Big Sky Men's Field Athlete of the Week honors both weeks leading up to the 2012 Big Sky Outdoor Track & Field Championship in Bozeman, Mont. He brought home the event title with a then-career-best mark of 221-10 (67.61m), which was good enough for the 17th on the accepted entry list to the NCAA West Regional in Austin, Texas.
On his first throw of the NCAA West Regional, MacKelvie set a new career-best and Portland State mark of 228-03 (69.57m). He would foul in his second attempt and then have a clean throw in his third attempt but it was the first throw that did the damage.
He finished second in his flight and sixth overall after the event prelims at the NCAA West Regional with the top 16 advancing to the finals. The finals went in reverse order with the top 12 making it to Des Moines. He was passed by three throwers but did not have to make a throw in the finals and finished ninth, advancing to the national finals.
“For the Portland State track and field program, it brings recognition to our program and is a great testimony to how much work we put in within the program,” Harrison said. “Sean is a great example of that. He's earned where he's at and has worked hard for it.”
Portland State has had four overall track and field national champions at any level. The first coming in 1962 when Steve Curtice won the NAIA Javelin Championship with a throw of 217-11 leading the Vikings to a seventh place as a team.
