Just when ASU seemed poised to continue another strong day at the NCAA Division II National Track and Field Championships, Mother Nature intervened.

What started as a hot and muggy day in Charlotte, N.C., did a complete turnaround as thunderstorms rolled in from the south and southeast causing a delay due to lightning at about 4:30 p.m.  All the teams headed to the gym at Johnson C. Smith University to wait out what turned into a four-hour delay.

"We just sat over at the gym," said head coach James Reid.  "Some of the girls took naps and some of the guys went to sleep, too.  We just tried to keep them from getting anxious and nervous.  We got some snacks, fruit and stuff like that.  We visited and slept and I think some of them played games on their phones, things like that."

When the call finally came to resume the day's events, first up was the 200-meter dash preliminaries for first the women and then the men.  ASU senior Celethia Byrd continued her fine form as she won her heat with a time of 23.37 seconds, the third-fastest time overall.

"Her fastest time is whatever she ran at the conference meet," Reid said.  "But, that is pretty close to it."

In the men's race, heartbreak again struck the Rams as senior James Howell finished fourth in his heat in 21.56 seconds, but missed out on qualifying for the finals by mere hundredths of a second.

"That was a fast time for James," Reid said.  "He ran in a fast heat.  His time in fourth was as fast as the second-place runner in the first heat."

In light of the long delay, Reid was proud of how his team had responded at that point.

"One of the things in bad weather that is detrimental," he said, "we start warming up and then we have to sit down.  We warm up again and then have to sit down.  They get things firing and then we have to cool them off.  I was a little worried we were going to get into that situation, and I still don't know if we are going to get all this in tonight or not."

Reid's words proved prophetic as just 22 minutes after the re-start, thunderstorms rolled back in causing another delay and eventually postponing all the remaining events until Saturday.  Saturday will now feature what are called "timed finals."  Basically, the heats in each event will be run and the athletes with the top eight overall times will be the point winners.  That way, athletes in postponed events will not have to run preliminary heats and the finals in the same day.

"Coach (Tom) Dibbern and I were visiting about this, and I really think it is going to be okay for us if not good for us," Reid said.  "We had some athletes that had run early tonight who were beginning to show signs of wear and tear.  It adds more events tomorrow, but it gives us another day's rest."

"They really got to a point where they had to make a decision," he added.  "It's not fair to keep everybody up there until 11:30 or midnight and then tell them we are going to have to push it to tomorrow.  The fact that we are going to run timed finals, it bodes okay for us." 

Saturday's forecast in Charlotte is still a bit dicey, with chances for thunderstorms diminished but still present.  Reid is fairly confident the NCAA will try to complete the meet tomorrow rather than push any events to Sunday, which would mess up everyone's return travel plans.

"This is my 23^rd or 24^th national championships that I've been at, and never have we had a situation where this many events were pushed to the next day," he said.  "Had the lightning not been there tonight, we would've been running.  As hard as it was raining, I've seen us run in that kind of rain."

"I'm very excited about what we've been able to accomplish to this point.  I hope we can keep it going."

Fun Facts

• Sophomore sprinter Nick Smith always eats Skittles before he races.

"It started in high school," he said.  "I would eat Skittles before every race.  Now, I've transferred it over to college and it's still working."

• Junior sprinter Ryan Adkins is perhaps the cleanest of the ASU athletes as he always takes a shower right before he heads to the track for a race.

"It chills me out," he said.

• Junior hurdler Brian Holik and junior sprinter Sara Hooker are both from Wall. Both are also top students and swept the 2010 Lone Star Conference Academic Male and Female Track and Field Athlete of the Year Awards. Holik is majoring in exercise science and Hooker is pre-med.