The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
Tisher Poised For NCAA Championships
6/9/2014 12:00:00 AM | Women's Track & Field
June 9, 2014
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - UAB's Neal Tisher has certainly had a busy past two weeks and it continues later this week when she pole vaults for a national title at the NCAA Championships in Eugene, Ore.
The Mobile, Ala. native transferred to UAB for medical school at the beginning of last fall, and has since balanced her first year of studies with a continuation of her pole-vaulting career, where she was an All-American at Ole Miss.
"Coach (Kurt Thomas) and I decided at the beginning of the year to see if it would work, doing pole vault and medical school," Tisher said. "We said we'd take it week by week and we decided to just fix the things we could. When I came out to practice, I trained with the sprinters. We worked on approaches and I'd do pole runs without a box or anything. I'm jumping higher and we didn't really know what to expect out of this year, but it's been great."
"She's pretty special," Thomas said. "That's one of the things that I don't think a lot of people really understand, which is how she has to balance her schedule. There's not a lot of people in this country in the NCAA or in other sports that could handle it. She's done great and I know that if she can't come to practice that day, she's going to get done whatever she needs to get done training wise. It's made it very difficult, but I kind of just sit back and am in awe because most of us can't do those kinds of things."
To summarize Tisher's last few days, she qualified for the NCAA Championships at the NCAA East Prelims in Jacksonville, Fla. two weekends ago, just recently took a three-hour final to cap her spring semester of medical school, flew to Maine for a medical school conference over the weekend, then flew onto Eugene where she will cap her competitive career this Friday.
"I might have to force myself to stay up later and be a little sleep deprived, because that's what I've been used to this year," Tisher said. "It's going to be nice to have a week off before competing for the first time this year."
Aside from balancing the schoolwork, which she now doesn't have to worry with this week, Tisher has continuously upped her marks in the pole vault as the season has progressed dating back to March.
After topping out at a 4.10m to open the month of May at the Jace LaCoste Invite, Tisher accomplished one of her main goals, breaking the 14-foot mark, to break the six-year old Conference USA record with a 4.28m (14-0 ½) performance at the Conference USA Championships in Houston. In her most recent attempts, Tisher vaulted to a 4.20m (13-9 ¼) at the NCAA East Prelim in Jacksonville, Fla. to officially qualify for the NCAA Championships.
Her school and conference record at the C-USA Championships is 11th-best in the NCAA entering Friday's competition, while the 4.20m at the prelims ties for the top seeded mark going into Eugene as she was one of 10 student-athletes to qualify at a 4.20.
Tisher will vault for a national championship at 3:15 p.m. PT/5:15 p.m. CT on Friday at Hayward Field.
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