Soldotna’s Allie Ostrander stepped off the track two-thirds of the way through the 5,000 meters at NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships on Friday in Birmingham, Alabama.
ESPN3, after talking with Ostrander and her trainer when she stepped off the track, reported that the Boise State freshman had been suffering from knee pain and had been out of training for two weeks before the event. Ostrander scratched from Saturday’s 3,000.
The 2015 Kenai Central graduate was in fourth place Friday when stepping off the track about 10 minutes into the race, which was won by Notre Dame’s Molly Seidel by about 8 seconds in 15:15.23.
Seidel was the top seed coming into the race with a time of 15:19.64, while Ostrander was second at 15:21.85.
Seidel and Ostrander also were scheduled to face off in the 3,000 meters Saturday, where Ostrander has the season’s top time at 8:54.27 and Seidel is second at 8:57.13. Seidel won the 3,000 Saturday by more than 6 seconds with a time of 8:57.86.
Ostrander’s injury did not keep a member of the 2015 Kenai Central track team from claiming All-American status Friday, though.
Jonah Theisen, also a 2015 graduate of Kenai Central, became an All-American at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field Championships on Friday in Pittsburg, Kansas.
Theisen, a freshman at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota, helped the distance relay finish third at the meet with a time of 9:49.67, with American International winning at 9:48.02. The time also set a new school record for the Yellow Jackets.
The team also included Mark Fruechte, Alec Baldwin and Levi Fried, who went to Kodiak High School. All members of the team ran personal-best splits in the race, including Theisen’s improvement of four seconds.
