GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- Five members of the Tusculum University men's and women's indoor track and field teams have been selected to participate at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championship, which will be held March 13-14 at the Virginia Beach Sports Center in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Seniors Jahzara Hart and Shanice Cox, along with sophomores Qitarah Castlin and Kori Moore, will represent the Pioneer women while junior Lansford Cunningham will compete for the Tusculum men. The five indoor nationals participants is a program single-year record, and gives Tusculum at least one competitor at the Indoor Track & Field Championship in seven of the program's nine years of existence.
Hart and Castlin will compete in the women's 60 meters, with Hart, Cox and Castlin all entered in the 200 meters. Moore will run in the 60-meter hurdles, and Cunningham is entered in the men's long jump. This is the first time that Tusculum has had multiple entries in a single event at the NCAA Indoor championship, and the first time that the Pioneers will have three competitors in an event at either the indoor or outdoor nationals.
Tusculum's women earned a program-best second-place finish at last weekend's South Atlantic Conference Indoor Track & Field Championship, led by podium sweeps in the 60 meters by Hart, Castlin and Moore and in the 200 meters by Hart, Cox and Castlin.
Hart is the lone Pioneer with previous experience at the NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championship, placing ninth in the 60 meters last season and taking All-America honors in the 4x100 relay with a fourth-place finish. The Raleigh, North Carolina native was an NCAA Outdoor All-American in the 100 meters last year, and is coming off a sweep of the 60 meters and 200 meters at the SAC Championship. She is seeded third in the 60 meters with a time of 7.31 seconds set at the VMI Winter Relays on Feb. 6, and is sixth in the 200 meters at 23.77 seconds set at the SAC Championship.
Cox posted a career-best time of 23.90 seconds in route to a second-place finish at the SAC Championship, and she ran the second leg of the 4x400-meter relay that set a school and SAC record of 3:45.17 which clinched the second-place finish for the Pioneers. The Minneapolis, Minnesota native was an All-American outdoors along with Hart last season in the 4x100 relay.
Castlin qualified for nationals with a time of 7.44 seconds in the 60 meters at the VMI Winter Classic on Feb. 14, ranking her 15th nationally, and earned her 13th-place seed in the 200 meters by running 23.92 seconds in the finals at the SAC Championship. The Griffin, Georgia native medaled three times at the SAC Championship, running the anchor leg of the gold-medal 4x400 relay to go along with her silver in the 60 and bronze in the 200.
Moore was the SAC Indoor Women's Track Athlete of the Meet after winning two gold medals, a bronze and a fifth-place finish at the SAC Championship. She won the 60 hurdles with a time of 8.57 seconds, after qualifying 11th for the NCAA Championship with a time of 8.46 seconds at the Vanderbilt Invitational on Jan. 17. The Jonesboro, Georgia native also ran 8.47 seconds in prelims at the SAC Championship.
Cunningham will be the first Pioneer to compete in the long jump at an NCAA Championship, indoor or outdoor. He recorded the top five marks in program history in the event during the 2026 season, topped by going 7.55 meters (24 feet, 9 1/4 inches) at the VMI Winter Classic on Feb. 14. The Montego Bay, Jamaica native is seeded third at nationals, but is coming off a silver-medal performance at the SAC Championship behind Tobechukwu Nwokocha of Lenoir-Rhyne, who is the top seed at 7.78 meters.
Student-athletes qualified for the championships by reaching a provisional standard established for each event. For each individual event contested, the top 18 declared student-athletes were accepted into the competition, the top 12 declared relay teams, one per institution, were accepted, and for the heptathlon and pentathlon the top 16 declared student-athletes were accepted into the competition.
Competition for the Pioneers will begin on Friday, March 13 starting with the women's 60-meter hurdles at 3 p.m. The women's 60 meter trials are at 3:#0 p.m., followed by the finals in the men's long jump at 5:10 p.m. and the women's 200 prelims at 6 p.m.
On Saturday, March 14, finals will be held in all three women's track events for the Pioneers, starting with the 60 hurdles at 3:55 p.m. The 60 meter finals will be at 4:20 p.m., with the women's 200 finals at 5:55 p.m.
