INDIANAPOLIS – Freshman Katie Cavanaugh (East Rockaway, N.Y./Kellenberg) has made the final cut to compete in the NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Championships this weekend at North Central College in Naperville, Ill., it was announced Monday.

Cavanaugh is one of 15 athletes who will compete in the 60-meter hurdles. Preliminary heats for the event will be held on Friday at 4:15 p.m. CST and the final is scheduled for Saturday at 2:05 p.m.

Two preliminary heats will be contested, and the two winners will advance to the final along with the next six-fastest competitors. Cavanaugh enters the meet seeded 14th.

This past Saturday, Cavanaugh made a dramatic improvement in her top time to make the field. Entering the day ranked 35th in Division III, she lowered her own school record by 0.19 seconds at the Columbia Last Qualifying Meet at the Armory in New York City to jump 21 spots in the national rankings. She finished third out of six competitors with a time of 8.95, placing behind only an unattached athlete and an athlete from Villanova University.

A competitor list for the entire meet can be accessed at http://www.ncaa.com/news/trackfield-indoor-women/article/2013-03-04/qualifiers-named-championships.

Cavanaugh has broken or reset her own school record in the hurdles five times this season. She will be the first female track & field athlete at Gettysburg to compete at the NCAA Championships since Vanessa Pabon '10 participated in the triple jump at the 2009 outdoor meet. The last time a women's track & field athlete from Gettysburg competed at the NCAA Indoor Championships was in 2008, when Shannon Yates '08 came in 10th in the triple jump.