MADISON, Wis. -- It all came down to the 4x400m relay but the Western Michigan track and field team came up just short, taking second place with a score of 186 at the Wisconsin Invitational on Saturday night.
The host Wisconsin Badgers took first place as they edged out WMU in the final event, scoring 189.50 points. Indiana State took third place with 169.50 and Wisconsin-Milwaukee took fourth at 90.50.
"I'm not very happy about losing this meet," said head coach
Kelly Lycan. "We didn't take care of business. We had some good individual performances but we need to work better on our team performances. We have to learn to compete better as a team if we are going to contend for a MAC Championship this year."
In all the Broncos took five event titles on the day but were unable to catch the Badgers in the final event.
Ashley Hunault took home first place in the long jump with a distance of 19 feet, 4.25 inches in her first jump since the opening meet of the season against Toledo.
Iris Campbell took third place with a distance of 17 feet, 11.25 inches. Campbell went on to win the 200m dash with a time of 25.02 seconds, place second in the 60m hurdles with another personal-best time of 8.77 seconds and place fourth in the high jump.
Freshman
Andrea Arnold continued her strong season by taking first place in the 400m dash with a time of 56.57 seconds. Arnold, along with Campbell, Hunault and
Leya Munwam were a part of the second-place 4x400 team that ran a season-best time 3:47.32 but fell over a second short of first place. Munwam also had her best time of the season in the 400m dash at 57.57.
Sophomore
Rachel Whitley had a solid day, taking second place in the mile with a personal-best time of 4:58.78 and then coming from behind to win the 800m run with a time of 2:13.28.
Samantha Tomerlin dominated the other distance event on the day, taking first place in the 3,000m run by over 23 seconds at 10:01.12. Wisconsin's Lavinia Jurkiewicz took second place in the race with a time of 10:24.67.
Jeriesha Tucker took third place in the 600m run with a time of 1:37.26. Tucker was placed in the slower heat and did an excellent job of staying focused and competing against herself in the race to maintain a good pace and time.
Western Michigan heads back to Notre Dame for the Meyo Invitational on Friday and Saturday.
