Bluffton High School grad and Eastern Mennonite All-American runner Hannah Chappell-Dick turned on the gas late in her preliminary race at Division III NCAA Nationals on Friday, earning a spot in Saturday's finals.
Despite sitting ninth in the nation entering the indoor national championships, she was second in her heat of the mile in 5:00.23 and will sit fourth out of the 10 finalists.
The top eight finishers in Saturday's race earn All-America status. Start time for the women's mile in Grinnell, Iowa, is set for 2:40pm Eastern time.
A live video webcast is available from the NCAA by clicking here.
Chappell-Dick sat in the middle of the nine-woman pack for the first two laps of the race. Around the three-minute mark (midway through the third lap) the senior made her initial move to the outside and by the end of that lap she had passed four runners to break into second place.
For the final lap, Chappell-Dick ran with two familiar faces. She paced one stride behind Maryann Gong from MIT, a competitor she has raced against in her previous Nationals trips. And one step behind EMU's senior was a fellow ODAC runner in Virginia Wesleyan's Marissa Coombs.
That pattern stayed to the finish, with Gong crossing first in 5:00.13, followed by Chappell-Dick's 5:00.23 and Coombs' 5:00.45. Gong, also a stellar 3000m runner, took third in the mile at last year's NCAA meet.
Tricia Serres from Luther won the first heat of the event in 4:59.34, while Emily Gapinksi of St. Thomas also broke five minutes at 4:59.67. That duo finished first and second, respectively, ahead of Chappell-Dick in the 1500m at the outdoor championships last May.
