Women's Track & Field | February 24, 2018
BOWLING GREEN, Ohio – The Western Michigan track and field team sits in fourth place after day one of the 2018 Mid-American Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships, hosted by Bowling Green State University.
The big highlight of the day came from the distance medley relay team of Claire Gilbert, Alex Bryant, Juliane Sormain and Sarah Anderson that combined to run a time of 11:47.24 to take second place and earn Second Team All-MAC status.
"Coach (Taryn) Sheehan put the right person on the leadoff," said head coach Kelly Lycan. "Claire did a great job with all 12 teams out there at once. It was like rush-hour traffic with people bumping into each other. Claire was able to get out of that mess and near the lead. Alex did a really good job, too. She got a little excited and got out a little too hard at the beginning but kept it close. Juliane got us back to third place and then Sarah just did a good job of being patient. EMU had gone off and left everyone and we were in fourth, but Sarah out-kicked everyone."
The group earned WMU eight of its 23 points on the day.
WMU had two scorers in the long jump with sophomore Gabrielle Collins and junior Erica Sheahan. Collins finished with a personal-best distance of 19' 5.25" (5.92 meters) to take fourth place. Sheahan also had a personal best performance with a jump of 18' 9.75" (5.73 meters) to take eighth and score for the first time in her career.
Senior Hanne Christensen was yet another Bronco with a personal-best performance. The Grand Blanc, Mich., native finished in fourth with a 5,000-meter run time of 16:45.78.
The Broncos also had two scorers and two personal-best performances in the pentathlon. Allison Hufnagel, who had been battling illness all week, finished in sixth place with 3,378 points. Sophomore Taylor Fender had personal-best performances in four of the five events and finished with 3,066 points to score for the first time in her career, taking eighth.
In the sprints, sophomore Madison Meredith qualified in both the 60-meter and 200-meter dashes. Fellow sophomore Erin Dowd qualified for the finals in the 400-meter dash and Anderson turned in the top qualifying time in the 800-meter run.
"We left a few points out there," Lycan added. "Overall I'm really satisfied that everyone came to compete today. A lot of them had their best performances of the year and that's all you can ask for at a meet like this."
WMU wraps up the MAC Indoor Championships on Saturday.
