HONOLULU – Four Hawai’i track and field athletes are set to compete on the national stage at the NCAA First Round in College Station, Texas, Thursday and Saturday.
 
Lilian Turban, Helen Hoadley, Tara Wyllie and Lucy Milliner will compete against some of the best athletes in the West Region with a chance to advance to the NCAA Championships, June 11-14 in Eugene, Ore. The four athletes who have qualified mark the most UH has sent to the NCAA First Round since 2016.
 

NCAA FIRST ROUND
Date | Time				Lilian Turban Thursday, May 29 — 9:30 a.m. HT (Javelin) Saturday, May 31 — 10:30 a.m. HT (High Jump) Helen Hoadley Thursday, May 29 — 12:30 p.m. HT (Pole Vault) Tara Wyllie Saturday, May 31 — 9:30 a.m. (Triple Jump) Lucy Milliner Thursday, May 29 — 2:50 p.m. (800m)
Location				College Station, Texas — E.B. Cushing Stadium
Live Stream				Thursday | Saturday
Live Results				HERE

Turban is entered in the javelin Thursday and the high jump Saturday while Wyllie competes in the triple jump Saturday, Hoadley qualified in the pole vault and will be in action Thursday and Milliner earned a spot in the 800m which is set for Thursday, with a chance to advance to Saturday’s quarterfinals.
 
A two-time champion at the Big West Championships earlier this month, Turban will become the first Rainbow Wahine athlete to compete in multiple events at the NCAA preliminary round since Charlinda Ioane and Alex Porlier Langlois in 2016 (shot put, discus). In Turban’s last NCAA postseason appearance outdoors in 2023, she finished third at the first round meet on the way to claiming All-America honors with a fourth-place national finish.
 
Wyllie is the No. 28 qualifier in the west in the triple jump with a season best mark of 12.93m that has her in second all-time at UH. She will be making her second consecutive appearance in the NCAA First Round.
 
Hoadley will compete in an NCAA event for the first time in her career after setting a school record earlier this year by clearing 4.20m. She finished runner up this year at both the Big West Championships outdoors and the MPSF Championships indoors.
 
Milliner turned in a stellar freshman season in the middle distance races and will represent the ‘Bows in the 800m. Her season best mark of 2:07.05 puts her in 44th in the region and second all-time in program history. The native of England claimed a spot on the podium at the Big West Championships in the 1500m while also finishing fourth in the 800m. She is the first UH distance runner to qualify for the NCAA First Round since 2005 (Kelly Young, Dana Buchanan).
 

BEREA, Ohio – Baldwin Wallace University women’s volleyball second year head coach Kate Latkovic is pleased to announce the 2025 schedule.

BW opens the 2025 campaign on August 29 and 30 when it travels to nearby Sandusky to compete in Great Lakes Crossover at the Cedar Point Sports Complex.  The Yellow Jackets open the crossover with a pair of non-conference matches on August 29 against Franciscan University and Concordia University Chicago (Ill.).   BW closes out the crossover against Allegheny (Pa.) College on August 30.

The Yellow Jackets open the home portion of their schedule on September 5 and 6 when they host the Marcia French Invitational against Carnegie Mellon (Pa.) University, crosstown rival John Carroll University and Mount St. Joseph University.  

BW also hosts non-conference matches against Case Western Reserve University on September 10, The College of Wooster on September 23, Albion College on October 11, as part of a tr-match, and Oberlin College on October 15.

The Yellow Jackets also play in three other tournaments in September as they compete in the Wittenberg University Fall Classic on September 12 and 13, the Bengal Classic hosted by Buffalo State (N.Y.) University on September 19 and 20 and finally the Sommer Center Spiketacular hosted by Bluffton University on September 26 and 27.

The Ohio Athletic Conference slate begins on October 4 with a road match against Capital University.  BW also plays road league matches against Ohio Northern University on October 8, Wilmington College on October 18, Marietta College on October 24 and Heidelberg University on October 29.

The Yellow Jackets hosts conference matches against Otterbein University on October 11, the University of Mount Union on October 22 and Muskingum University on November 1.

BW closes out the regular season with a non-conference match against Denison University on November 8.

The OAC Tournament will be contested on November 11, 13, and 15.

 

SMITHFIELD, R.I.- Bryant University Track and Field runners Chloe Whiting and Jasmine Trott will make history this weekend as they become the first women in Division I program history to reach the First Round of the NCAA Championships. Trott will compete in the women’s 10,000m, while Whiting will run in the 5,000m.

“Jasmine and Chloe making the First Round of the NCAA Championships is a major milestone for the program and a huge testament to the commitment and dedication they put into the sport” said Bryant Director of Cross Country/Track and Field Mitchell Switzer. “The growth and development the two of them have had over the past couple of years has been really cool to see. They’ve put in the work, embraced every challenge, and become true leaders on and off the track. They’ve set a new standard for what it means to compete for Bryant and their achievements set a powerful example for the future of the team.”

The duo of Whiting and Trott are not only standout competitors and supportive teammates, but also roommates and best friends off the track. “It’s definitely something special being roommates and best friends and competitors and teammates” said Whiting when asked about her bond with Trott. “It’s such a blessing because we have each other on and off the track with everything that is going on in our lives. It’s so awesome to get to do it together. We talk about the fact that without each other, neither of us would have made it here.”

Whiting is enjoying one of the greatest seasons for a female track athlete in program history and is seeded 23rd in the women’s 5,000m heading into the East Regional. The catalyst for Whiting’s success this season began during the Bulldogs indoor season. On Jan. 18, Whiting claimed her first school record after posting a time of 9:44.75 in the 3,000m at the URI Invitational. Shortly thereafter, she would shine in the 5K at the Terrier Invitational on Feb. 1, where Whiting shattered Eimear Black’s 2013 time of 17:11.68 by over a full minute, finishing the race with a blistering time of 16:11.17. That performance would earn her Female Track Athlete of the Week honors from the America East on Feb. 4. 

Whiting carried that momentum into the conference season and took home gold medals at the 2025 America East Indoor Championships. She was also named the conference’s Most Outstanding Female Track Performer and was the recipient of the Coaches’ Award. Whiting would be awarded the league’s Indoor Track and Performer of the Year on Mar. 26.

Whiting’s newfound success translated almost immediately to the 2025 outdoor season. On Mar. 29 at the Black and Gold Invitational, she set a new school record in the outdoor women’s 5,000m after running a time of 16:19.17. That mark moved her ahead of Melissa Lodge ’18 who set the previous record time of 16:34.36 back in 2018. Whiting’s best performance of the season to date came during the 2025 Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa, California when she became the first woman in school history to run a sub 16 minute 5K, finishing the race with a remarkable time of 15:51.97. Whiting shined once again when facing America East competition. At the 2025 conference outdoor championships, she took the gold in the 5K with a time of 16:45.72 and earned the silver in the 10K after posting a time of 36:44.91. Whiting would be named the Most Outstanding Track Performer, sweeping the award in both the indoor and outdoor seasons.

Whiting attributes her dramatic improvement this season to a supportive coaching staff comprised of Switzer and Maggie Fox. “Coach Fox really is super intelligent in the sport and she knows training, what workouts work for which events…Coach Switzer is also incredibly knowledgeable in the sport and is a huge support system for us both on and off the track”. Fox joined the Black and Gold in August of 2023 after previous coaching stops at Babson, Boston College, and Emmanuel. She has served as the Head Cross Country/Assistant Track and Field Coach with the Bulldogs. Fox praised Whiting and Trott’s outstanding individual seasons saying, “Jasmine & Chloe have fully bought in and it’s a joy to coach athletes that work as hard as they do. The big gains we’re seeing are the direct result of choices and sacrifices they’ve made. I love that we get to set even bigger goals now.”

Switzer was recognized earlier this month for completing 10 years of service as a coach in Smithfield. He has played an instrumental role in transforming the program into the powerhouse it is today. Since being hired in 2015, all 22 women’s indoor track and field records have been broken. He also helped Bryant win its first team championship victory in program history after claiming the 2024 NEICAAA Women’s Championship. At the 2025 America East Indoor Championships, Switzer’s coaching staff was recognized as conference Women’s Coaching Staff of the Year. 

Jasmine Trott has had her eyes set on the NCAA Regionals for quite some time and has served as a driving motivation during her time donning the Black and Gold. “My goal since freshman year was just to make regionals,” said Trott ahead of the meet. “I’m just going to try to be present in the moment and absorb the atmosphere that I’m in…even if I don’t PR, I’ll still be happy with my performance since I have made it there.”

Trott’s rise to prominence in the women’s 10K began last season at the 2024 Black and Gold Invitational when she won the event with a time of 35:56.67. That mark helped her narrowly surpass the previous school record time of 35:56.94 which was set by Eimear Black in 2013. She also helped the women’s track and field team win at home for the first time in program history. Trott continued to improve in the event over the course of her sophomore season, capping the year off with a silver medal at America East Outdoor Championships after running 35:53.59.

This season, Trott would pick up right where she had left off, resetting her school record in 10K at the 2025 Black and Gold Invitational with a time of 34:01.76. Trott would medal once again at the conference championships, taking the bronze after posting a time of 36:45.01. Her best performance of the spring came during the 2025 Bryan Clay Invitational. Trott finished the race in second place with a time of 33:35.17, shattering her previous school record and setting an all-time mark 2:21.77 faster than the next closest Bulldog. Trott is seeded 26th at the East Regional.

Competition at the NCAA East Regionals begins on Wednesday, May 28 and concludes on Saturday, May 31st. Events will be held on the campus of the University of North Florida, in Jacksonville, Florida. Trott will compete in the women’s 10,000m on Thursday, May 29 at 9:10 PM. Whiting will run in the women’s 5,000m on Saturday, May 31at 8:10 PM.
 

CINCINNATI – Xavier volleyball announced the complete 2025 schedule this afternoon, which kicks off on Friday, Aug. 29. The Musketeers’ schedule is comprised of three round robin tournaments and three standalone non-conference matches before the 16-game BIG EAST schedule gets underway.

Xavier will face opponents from six different conferences outside the BIG EAST this season including the ASUN, Big 12, Horizon, MAC, Missouri Valley, and Ohio Valley. XU has a 70-67 all-time record against all 11 non-conference opponents this season.

The Musketeers will face three teams that made the NCAA Tournament last season, two of which advanced to the Sweet 16 and one with an Elite 8 appearance.

Head Coach Christy Pfeffenberger returns 12 players from last season’s squad with the addition of two transfers and three other newcomers. The 2025 squad is comprised of one grad student, three seniors, six juniors, four sophomores, and three freshmen. 

“This upcoming season is exciting to think about because of so many unknowns. We have many new opponents in our non-conference that will bring about new challenges,” said Pfeffenberger. “The BIG EAST Conference itself is full of some top tier returners along with fresh talent which will make for a thrilling season. Our team worked hard in our off season bringing together our returners and younger players. I couldn’t be more excited to continue to show our fans what Xavier Volleyball is all about.”

The Musketeers earned six player of the week honors, six honor roll nods and one postseason award with redshirt sophomore Margo Kemp being named the BIG EAST Co-Freshman of the Year last season.

Xavier looks to return to the BIG EAST Tournament this season, hosted by Marquette in Milwaukee from Nov. 21-22.

The Musketeers’ 2025 season begins with a trip to Clarksville, Tennessee to compete in the Stacheville Challenge hosted by Austin Peay from Aug. 29-30. The four-team tournament also consists of Tennessee Tech and Murray State. Xavier has a combined 15-3 record against all three opponents in the field.

XU will open the home slate the following weekend, hosting its own tournament at Cintas Center. IU Indy, Miami (OH), and Eastern Kentucky will all visit Cincinnati for a round robin from Sept. 4-6. Xavier is facing Miami (OH) for the second straight year.

The Musketeers travel to face crosstown rival Cincinnati at Fifth Third Arena on Sept. 9. Xavier has won two of the last three against the Bearcats, including a 3-1 win the last time UC hosted. The Musketeers and Bearcats have played each other 38 times.

Xavier will head to Rochester, Michigan from Sept. 12-13 to compete in the Oakland Tournament. The Musketeers will face Oakland for just the second time in program history. Eastern Michigan and Southern Illinois will also be in attendance. The Musketeers have won the last four straight against EMU while XU and SIU will face off for the first time in program history.

XU will round out non-conference play with a pair of matches against Morehead State. The Eagles will host the first on Sept. 18 in Morehead, Kentucky, before traveling to Cincinnati on Sept. 20. MSU earned the Ohio Valley’s NCAA Tournament bid in the 2024 season. Xavier has won the last four straight against the Eagles, most recently in 2013.

The Musketeers open BIG EAST play on Sept. 24 when Butler visits the Cintas Center. The Musketeers are 25-19 all-time against the Bulldogs, winning four of the last five including a sweep last season at home. This will mark the third straight meeting between the two at Cintas Center and their lone match up this season.

Xavier will travel to face reigning BIG EAST champion Creighton on Sept. 26 in Omaha, Nebraska for their lone meeting this season. The Bluejays have won 10 of the last 11 conference championships and made an appearance in the NCAA Quarterfinals last fall. The Musketeers defeated Creighton in a 3-2 thriller on Sept. 23, 2023 in Cintas Center.

XU will then face Georgetown on Oct. 3 and Villanova on Oct. 4 for a weekend on the road. The Musketeers have won the last 10 straight against GU including two 3-1 wins in the 2024 season. Xavier dropped both matches against VU last season but are still 12-10 all time against the Wildcats.

UConn and Providence will visit Cintas Center on Oct. 10 and 11, respectively. The Musketeers have won three of the last four against UConn, splitting both matches last season. XU took down the Huskies in a five-set thriller at home on Oct. 25, 2024. Xavier is 19-2 all time against PC, winning the last five straight against the Friars.

Xavier hits the road again with trips to Marquette on Oct. 17 and DePaul on Oct. 18. MU was the BIG EAST runner-up a season ago and made it to the NCAA Sweet 16. DePaul took down the Musketeers in the teams’ lone match up last season, but Xavier still owns a 21-11 record over the Blue Demons. DePaul is making its first trip to Cincinnati since the 2023 season.

The Musketeers will host St. John’s on Oct. 24 and Seton Hall on Oct. 25 for the singular match ups against both teams this season. Xavier and SJU split both matches last season with each team sweeping the other in their home arenas. XU and SHU also split both of their meetings last season with the Musketeers taking a 3-2 win on the road over the Pirates. Xavier is 17-5 all time against SHU, winning five of the last six.

Xavier will play Villanova and Georgetown for a second time this season on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, respectively. The Musketeers will travel for second match ups against Providence on Nov. 7 and UConn on Nov. 8. The regular season wraps up at home for the Musketeers with visits from DePaul on Nov. 15 and Marquette on Nov. 16 in Cintas Center.

The BIG EAST Tournament will welcome four teams this year for a two-day tournament in Milwaukee hosted by Marquette. The semi-finals start on Nov. 21 while the championship game takes place on Nov. 22.

Ron and Russell Mael are that rarest of all breeds, the Los Angeles native. The brothers came of age in the 1960s on L.A.’s Westside — decades before it was “310” or west of the 405 Freeway — because the north/south artery hadn’t yet been built. A sporty upbringing of beach volleyball, AM radio tuned to 93 KHJ, and Palisades High School football (for Russell) belie the intellectual cool-cult status the band has held for decades. A status, that in the last few years, after making eclectic, uncompromising and witty albums since 1971, is morphing into something approaching mainstream recognition.

The Maels credit the newfound momentum to cinema, specifically the 2021 Edgar Wright documentary “The Sparks Brothers” and “Annette,” a film that opened Cannes in 2021 which found the creator-brothers joyful on the red carpet with director Leos Carax and stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. Up next? A “half-musical” with John Woo (“Face/Off”).

If the musicians’ visibility and viability has shifted, Sparks’ music remains inventive, brainy and flamboyant pop, often born of sunshiny moments and wistful memories that wend their way into lyrics.

But it’s hardly nostalgia. “Perhaps in the themes,” says Ron, “but in a musical sense, we really try to avoid nostalgia completely.”

“JanSport Backpack,” is a yearning tune with harmonies and a hazily poignant emotional tone akin to the Beach Boys —another band of Westside brothers and musical observers of youth culture. If the narrator laments the JanSport Backpack girl walking away, the love interest in “My Devotion” has “[her] name written on my shoe,” as Russell sings.

“Maybe it isn’t so much nostalgic,” Ron said. “In some ways, we matured, in some we haven’t, so we’re still kind of living in an era of writing somebody’s name on their shoes.”

One tune is a surprising almost-love-letter to a fixture that’s the bane of many Golden State warriors’ existence — and satirized aptly on the “Saturday Night Live” sketch “The Californians”: The 405 Freeway. “I-405” is a frenetic, driving, cinematic journey that perfectly captures the drama and beauty roiling underneath bumper-to-bumper frustration.

“You kind of think of the I-405 in a negative way, because you think of being stuck on it. Everybody has their horror stories about it,” says Ron, perched next to his brother in the lounge area of Russell’s bright recording studio, surrounded by the coolest pop culture tchotchkes and collectibles imaginable.

“One time when I was up at the Getty Center, and it was starting to be dusk, with the cars moving it seemed, in its own weird, L.A. kind of way, romantic. Almost like our equivalent, if you really stretch it, to the beautiful rivers in Europe and Japan,” Ron says. “That was kind of the starting point for the song. If you look at it from a distance, there is kind of a beauty, and I think that’s one of the keys to Los Angeles. You have to see things that you kind of think of as mundane in a slightly different way. Like, you go to Europe and things are obviously Art. Period. But here, a car wash or something…”

“…We’re big fans of supermarkets,” Russell chimes in. “When they go away, it’s kind of sad. Even department stores now are almost becoming a relic of the past. It’s like a ghost town in the Beverly Center. All that’s going to be gone at some point soon.”

If not by gentrification and L.A.’s habit of eating its own, then natural disasters. The Jan. 7 Palisades fire burned part of Ron’s high school, and the entirety of the home they lived in with their mother after their father’s passing, on Galloway Street in the Palisades. Nearly every house in the entire neighborhood — the Alphabet Streets, a working-class enclave when the Maels lived there — was reduced to a pile of rubble.

“They had some of those aerial shots where they made the grid of the names of the streets, and it was gone. It’s hard to comprehend, it was real suburbia there,” says Russell, “and flat, so you think, ‘well, surely that can’t burn down.’”

Slightly east of the 405, the Maels attended UCLA when culture was at a tipping point. Ron saw some of Jim Morrison’s “kind of impressive” student films at the school, and the brothers recall that, “UCLA, at the time, had this amazing booking policy; you had Jimi Hendrix and Alice Cooper and Mothers of Invention, Canned Heat. It wasn’t considered such a big deal. Just, ‘Let’s go see that person.’ Now you have to go online and mortgage your house to go to see anybody,” says Ron.

“We always loved that kind of music,” adds Russell, “but we never thought that we would ever be, you know, professional musicians. It’s just that was the music that we really loved.”

That said, by the age of 5, Ron was taking piano lessons and giving a recital at the Women’s Club of Venice, near where the Mael family then resided. At Paul Revere Junior High, Russell won first place at a Shakespeare Festival for his sonnet recitation.

Post those halcyon days, the brothers began delving into music together. Russell’s powerful, at times operatic, vocals and energetic stage presence proved the perfect foil for Ron’s distinctly quirky mien and adroit facility with words and keys. “I don’t know if you go as far as to call it a band,” clarifies Ron. “It was an attempt at being a band. We played at some dorm thing at UCLA once.”

“We also played a pizza place in Westwood,” Ron remembers.

“Shakey’s Pizza,” Russell adds with a laugh. “We were top-billed that night. Yeah, free pizza. We did the local Westwood circuit and then when we got somewhat better we started playing the Whisky a Go Go a bunch. We were officially Sparks then.”

The Sunset Strip, past its Doors days and with hair metal far on the horizon, wasn’t especially welcoming to Sparks, though [Whisky founder] Elmer Valentine “irrationally loved our band,” says Ron. “The audiences, when they showed up, they really didn’t like us and we were really way too loud. But he kept booking us. We would support people like Little Feat.”

The L.A. Times reviewed that 1973 show, with critic Richard Cromelin noting that Sparks’ “highly stylized attitude is not complemented by the necessary abandon.” That observation may ring true for some, but for Sparks, ultimately that “abandon” wasn’t and isn’t necessary. The energy of beguiling songs like “Angst in My Pants” and “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For the Both of Us,” belted out with Russell’s ebullient, pitch-perfect vocals, carry the always dynamic live show.

Over the last four years, the Maels are glad to shake the long-held best-kept-secret tag, grateful to “Annette” and “The Sparks Brothers” for the boost. “They kind of attracted people who were coming to us from the film area; they didn’t know about the band. It’s a new, younger audience, really diverse,” Russell says.

The lineup’s last few albums are the most meaningful to that sector. “Going back to say, [1974’s] “Kimono My House,” for them, it’s not meaningful in the same kind of way as somebody who was there at that time,” the singer says. “It’s really healthy that their focal point isn’t like the ‘golden era of whenever’ that might have been the ’70s in London or the ’80s in L.A. or any point in between.”

New eyes on the band have elicited a seemingly increased enthusiasm and energy that’s perhaps unexpected from seasoned septuagenarians. Unlike the Gallaghers, the Davieses, and many other brotherly duos in rock, the Maels present a united front. If the brothers are coy and circumspect about their personal lives, their working relationship is slightly less obtuse. Slightly. We’re in the room where their latest, “MAD!,” (released Friday) was created, and while the album credits both with lyrics and production, Ron is the main wordsmith. There’s seemingly not much back-and-forth on the lyrical themes or specifics.

“I hear about it on the day it’s time to start singing,” says Russell. “There’s a ‘here’s your lyrics, sir.’”

That said, Sparks’ seeming manifesto, “Do Things My Own Way” which starts the album, is clearly a statement of the duo’s longtime purpose, Russell singing, “Unaligned / Simply fine / Gonna do things my own way.”

So would it ever be “our own way”?

The Maels laugh. “Not as long as I’m writing the songs,” quips Ron.

“Good question, though,” says Russell with a smile.

“‘We witnessed the breakup of Sparks,’” Ron says with a laugh. “On the ‘Greatest Hits’ album, we can do a version that’s ‘ours.’”

Sparks performs at the Greek Theater on Sep. 30.

The pursuit for a spot in the track and field NCAA Championships is here.

Fifteen Colorado State track and field athletes will compete May 28-31 at the NCAA West Regional meet, with places in the national meet on the line.

There are 48 competitors in each individual event, and the top 12 placers advance to the outdoor NCAA Championships. The 2025 NCAA Championships are June 11-14 in Eugene, Oregon.

CSU’s Mya Lesnar headlines the group as she enters regionals ranked No. 1 in the nation in shot put. The Rams have several hopefuls to qualify for the championship meet, though. Klaire Kovatch enters regionals in a qualifying position in discus at ninth. Kajsa Borrman enters in a qualifying position in hammer throw at 11th.

Here’s when CSU qualifiers compete and where they rank nationally in their event:

May 28

• 9 a.m. men’s hammer: Adam Hellbom (26th), Leonardo Ramos (38th), Cameron Kalaf (45th)
• 3:30 p.m. men’s long jump: Ismael Dembele (37th)
• 5 p.m. men’s shot put: Leonardo Ramos (39th)

May 29

• 9 a.m. women’s hammer: Kajsa Borrman (11th)
• 4:30 p.m. women’s pole vault: Maria Kimpson (24th)
• 5 p.m. women’s shot put: Mya Lesnar (1st), Makayla Long (16th)
• 7:20 p.m. women’s 400 hurdles first round: Neya Jamison (35th)

May 30

• 1:30 p.m. men’s triple jump: Ismael Dembele (14th), Jamison Taylor (21st)
• 2:30 p.m. men’s high jump: Ndayiragije Shukurani (23rd), Rhys Travis (29th), Timothy Johnson (29th)
• 7:10 p.m. men’s 5,000: Michael Mooney (75th)

May 31

• Noon women’s discus: Klaire Kovatch (9th), Makayla Long (29th), Kajsa Borrman (32nd)

NCAA West Regional

• Dates: May 28-31
• Location: College Station, Texas/E.B. Cushing Stadium
• TV: ESPN+ (Coverage begins at 5 p.m. May 28 and 29, 4 p.m. May 30 and 31)

Follow sports reporter Kevin Lytle on X and Instagram @Kevin_Lytle.