Women's Track & Field | May 12, 2018
BUFFALO, N.Y. – The Western Michigan track and field team wrapped up the 2018 Mid-American Conference Outdoor Championship with two more individual MAC titles and a second place finish in the 4x400 on Saturday.
Redshirt sophomore Sarah Anderson was crowned MAC Champion of the 800-meter run after blowing away the field with a time of 2:07.21. Anderson was over two seconds faster than Ken State's Rachel Banks, who finished behind the Grand Rapids, Mich., native with a time of 2:09.76. Anderson is the fourth Bronco in program history to win a MAC title in the outdoor 800, joining Rachel Whitley, Becky Horn and Jill Stamison. Freshman Juliane Sormain finished in seventh place with a time of 2:13.73, scoring in her MAC Outdoor Championship debut.
Sophomore Erin Dowd won her first career MAC title after taking the top spot in the 400-meter hurdles. Dowd had qualified with the fastest time in Friday's preliminaries and backed it up with a time of 59.08 seconds, over 1.03 faster that Bowling Green's Chasatea Brown's second-place time. This is the second year in a row that WMU has claimed the 400 hurdles title after former Bronco Lindsey Hufnagel won it last year.
"The sophomores definitely had the spotlight this weekend," said head coach Kelly Lycan. "To see their improvement from last year was great. Sara didn't make the finals off the 800 last year and neither did Erin in the 400 hurdles. It was really encouraging to see all these underclassmen doing good things for us."
Anderson and Dowd were both part of the Western Michigan's 4x400 squad that ran a time of 3:41.76, taking second overall. Anderson led off the race before handing it off to senior Davonne Bolden. Bolden then handed the baton to Ashley Worford for the third leg. Dowd closed it out with a split of 54.73 seconds to edge out Eastern Michigan and finish just behind Miami. Bolden and Worford both earned Second Team All-MAC honors, while Anderson and Dowd earned First Team honors after winning their individual MAC titles.
As a team, WMU finished in sixth place with 64 points and just 10 points out of third place. Akron repeated as the MAC Outdoor Champion, with Eastern Michigan taking second.
Bolden also wrapped up her final MAC Championship by taking seventh in the 400-meter dash to earn two points on the day. Kaydon Fosler also had a seventh place finish on the day, earning two points after reaching a height of 5' 4.25" (1.64 meters) in the high jump.
"I was really proud of Davonne," Lycan added. "We knew she could run times that would score at the MAC but she always ran in to poor weather. Today it all came together and it's always great to see the seniors go out having success. "
In her first MAC Outdoor Championship appearance since 2015, redshirt junior Maria McDaniel took eighth in the 5,000-meter run to earn a point. The 4x100-meter relay team of Diamond Mitchell, Madison Meredith, Alex Bryant and Worford combined to take eighth and score another point after a time of 46.66 seconds. Meredith also took seventh in the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.82 seconds.
The Broncos now must wait to see if their marks can earn them spots in the NCAA East Preliminary Championship, May 24-26 at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla.
