June 8, 2004

LAS VEGAS - UNLV's Halima Decree and Christine Spence will begin competition in the NCAA Women's Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Wednesday, as the Rebels make a return to the championship meet after not having anyone advance past the regionals last season. The four-day meet is being hosted by the University of Texas at the Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin, Texas. Live results will be available on the web at http://www.texassports.com/results/ncaa2004/.

This is DeCree's first trip to the NCAA Championships, and she will be running in both the 100m and 200m dashes. The Mountain West Champion in the 100m dash, DeCree finished fourth at the NCAA West Regionals with a career-best mark of 11.52 to earn her trip to the championship meet. She comes into the meet seeded 21st out of 30 runners, with the preliminaries beginning at 4:40 pm (PST) on Wednesday. The semifinals will follow later that night, with the finals to be held on Friday. DeCree is seeded 28th (out of 29) in the 200m dash, after placing fifth at the regionals with a time of 23.72. The 200m preliminaries begin on Thursday at 3:20 pm, and the semifinals will be run later that night, followed by the finals on Saturday.

Spence is making her second trip to the NCAAs, but first as an individual after running on the Rebels' 4x400m relay team in 2002. She posted a third-place finish of 57.64 in the 400m hurdles at the regionals, which seeds her 17th out of 28. The 400m hurdles will begin with the preliminaries on Thursday at 4:20 pm, with the semifinals to be run on Friday and the finals on Saturday.