Arkansas pole vaulter Katie Stripling is getting to the routine now. But it doesn’t mean she likes it.

Compete in a meet at John McDonnell Field. Sit through a rain delay.

“Every home meet we’ve had there this year,” Stripling said. “We’ve had rain delays every meet. It’s getting kind of old.”

The three-hour wait didn’t keep Stripling and teammate Sarah Landau from advancing to the pole vault finals late Wednesday night, though. Stripling, one of the favorites in the event, was one of 10 pole vaulters to clear the bar at 13 feet, 5 1/4 inches. Landau’s best vault was 13-1 1/2, which was good enough to secure one of 15 spots in the field.

The two were part of Arkansas’ four-person crew in the event. Tara Diebold and Janice Keppler also competed in the pole vault semifinals on Wednesday night, but did not advance. All four had to wait a long, long time to compete, though.

Stripling said the crew spent three hours in Bud Walton Arena waiting out the rain. They sat in chairs, talked and listened to music. They got up and walked the stairs a few times to stay loose, but, “mostly we sat there and waited.”

But they made the best of it when they finally got to compete.

“I think it would’ve been a lot better if we actually competed when we were supposed to,” Stripling said. “It went pretty good, considering we had a three-hour delay.”

The women’s team closed the night with the 5,000. Arkansas’ Denise Bargiachi, one of two Razorbacks to run in the race, qualified for the finals by finishing sixth in her heat. She ran the race in 16:20.35.