Women's Track & Field | April 30, 2017
PHILADELPHIA – The Western Michigan track and field team wrapped up the 123rd running of the Penn Relay Carnival with a pair of third place finishes on Saturday.
The Broncos took third in the 4x400-meter relay and the 4x800-meter relay on the afternoon. Sarita Dotson, Lindsey Hufnagel, Jordan Anderson and Ayiana Gaines combined to run the Mid-American Conference's fastest time of the season at 3:37.88. Dotson gave the Broncos a strong start and handed it off to Hufnagel. The exchange between Hufnagel and Anderson didn't go smoothly, as a runner from another team stopped in front of Anderson and resulted in a crash. Despite the dust up, Anderson ended up running her fastest split of the season to keep the Broncos in the race. She then handed off to Gaines, who ran a split under 52 seconds for the first time in her career at 51.8 to get WMU the third place finish.
"I was really proud of the 4x4 squad today," said head coach Kelly Lycan. "I feel like this is exactly what we needed at this point of the year. Here we got to pass the stick around, see a bunch of teams we don't normally see and it was refreshing. We are in great shape heading into these past few weeks of the regular season."
In the 4x800 it was Jordan Anderson, Holly Blowers, Claire Gilbert and Sarah Anderson competing for the Broncos. Jordan Anderson led the race off to put the Broncos in a solid position before handing it off to the freshman Blowers. Blowers was un-phased by the atmosphere and ran a solid 800 to keep the squad the mix. Gilbert ran a personal-best split before handing it off to Sarah Anderson for the anchor. She was able to pass three teams on her way to pushing WMU up to third. The team combined to finish at 8:54.70.
Over at the Hillsdale "GINA" Relays, sophomore Kaniya Weatherspoon took fifth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 25.36 seconds. Senior Samantha Howard claimed sixth in the discus after tossing a distance of 132' 7".
WMU also took fifth and sixth in the javelin. Junior Audrey Oswalt took fifth place with a throw of 108' 7" and senior Kara Craig finished just five inches behind her at 108' 2". Senior Diajah Ruffin won the triple jump after reaching a distance of 39' 9.75" and also took third in the 400-meter dash championship after running a time of 57.21 seconds. Junior Ashley White took second in the 200-meter dash championship race with a time of 25.30 seconds.
Western Michigan heads to the University of Kentucky for its final meet before hosting the MAC Championships on May 11-13, for the Kentucky Relays on Saturday.
