Women's Track & Field | February 05, 2017
SOUTH BEND, Ind. – The Western Michigan track and field team ran the Mid-American Conference's fastest 4x400-meter relay to cap off a weekend of competition at the University of Notre Dame's Meyo Invitational on Saturday.
Sarita Dotson, Lindsey Hufnagel, Naiomi Dulaney and Ayiana Gaines combined to run a time of 3:41.01 to take third overall. WMU won its heat, finishing ahead of Illinois State thanks to an early lead by Dotson and then an anchor leg that saw Gaines retake the lead to win the race. The group finished behind Purdue, ranked 12th in the nation, and Miami, ranked third in the nation, but ahead of Iowa, ISU, Georgia Tech, Notre Dame and many others. After the race Western Michigan's squad now ranks 28th in the country.
"They came to run today and finished ahead of some very good teams," said head coach Kelly Lycan." I think we can take another big chunk off that time, so we are only going to get a lot faster. They had the confidence to run with some of the best teams in the country and it showed."
In other action redshirt freshman Sara Anderson turned in a new personal-best time of 4:54.19 and took second place in her heat. Davonne Bolden also had a personal-best performance after breaking 57 seconds for the first time at 56.92.
Over at the Hillsdale Classic freshman Jasmine McLemore finished eighth overall after running a time of 59.63 seconds. Fellow freshman Erica Sheahan took sixth overall in the long jump after reaching a distance of 17' 6.25". Junior Savannah Dugan placed fifth overall in the shot put and moved up to ninth on the all-time indoor shot put performance list at WMU after throwing 42' 10.25".
Also competing was senior Jordan Anderson. Anderson ran unattached because she only has eligibility remaining for the outdoor season. She took first place in the 400-meter dash with a time of 57.78 seconds. She also went on to win the 600-meter run with a meet-record time of 1:37.53.
Next week the Broncos split up again, heading to the Iowa State Classic and the Grand Valley State Invitational.
