DEKALB, Ill. -- Western Michigan's
Iris Campbell was named MVP and
Rachel Whitley was named the Most Outstanding Track Performer as they
each claimed two event titles at the 2011 Outdoor Mid-American
Conference Championships at Northern Illinois on
Saturday.
WMU
tallied 92 points on the day for fourth behind Miami (107), Eastern
Michigan (116.50) and champions Kent State (117.50). The Broncos had a
14 point gap between themselves and fifth place Buffalo. Both Whitley
and Campbell were named First Team All-MAC for their performances.
Whitley
earned her first career MAC title by winning the 1,500m run with a
personal-best time of 4:30.34. Whitley bested Miami's Kate Lenahan by
.25 seconds for the win. Her second came in the 800m run with a time of
2:10.71, beating out Buffalo's Asia Henry by .09 seconds.
"Rachel
ran two really smart and strategic runs," said head coach
Kelly Lycan.
"She is such a great race runner and she saw the holes and made the
moves at the perfect times."
Campbell took home titles in the
200m dash and the long jump, giving her three individual titles in her
short career. Her distance of 19 feet, six inches tied her with Akron's
Brittany Cheese but the tie-breaker went to Campbell for having the
larger secondary distance.
"Cheese popped a really big jump and
you could see it in Iris' eyes that she just wasn't going to lose,"
explained Lycan. "For a sophomore to handle that with poise and coming
through in such a clutch situation was huge for us. She did a great job
in handling her heavy work load."
In the 200m dash the
multi-talented sophomore would have finished with a school record time
of 23.55 seconds but due to a strong wind rating the time cannot be
applied to records and qualifications. Campbell was also one of two
Broncos to score in the 400m dash, taking second place with a time of
54.77 seconds. Freshman
Andrea Arnold took eighth place to score a point
for WMU with a time of 56.40.
Campbell was not done there, she
also scored in the 100m hurdles, placing fourth with a time of 14
seconds. She contributed to WMU's fifth place finish in the 4x400m relay
and the fourth place finish of the 4x100m relay team. Campbell totaled
34.8 points on the day and as the top point scorer at the MAC
Championships was named MVP.
WMU's senior distance runners
Samantha Tomerlin and
Jenna Matthews each scored points on the day.
Matthews, a native of Otsego, Mich., took fifth place in the 3,000m
steeplechase with a school-record time of 10:41.47. Tomerlin, a native
of Allegan, Mich., finished in third place in the 5,000m run with a time
of 17:02.96. Her third place finish is the highest she has ever placed
at the Outdoor MAC Championships.
"The school record was a goal
all season long for Jenna," said Lycan. "She has come such a long way
and (assistant) coach (Taryn) Sheehan has really done a great job with
her. Jenna had some trouble finishing races early in her career but she
turned into a great runner and to see her score some points for us like
that was huge."
Both Matthews and Tomerlin must wait till
Wednesday to see if they qualify for the NCAA East Regional Championships.
Another
senior that stepped up for the Broncos was thrower
Stephanie Mitchell.
Mitchell placed turned in a career-best performance by placing fifth in
the shot put with a distance of 47 feet, 9.75 inches.
A pair of
youngsters in freshmen
Chiara Allen and
Andrea Hiler both scored at the
outdoor championships for the first time in their careers. Allen
finished in seventh place in the triple jump, an event she also scored
in at the indoor championship, with a distance of 38 feet, five inches.
Hiler scored for the first time in her career, placing sixth in the
discus with a personal-best distance of 162 feet, six inches.
Several Broncos must now wait until
Wednesday to see if they have qualified for the NCAA East Regional Championships.
