Women's Track & Field | January 12, 2019
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Western Michigan track and field team tied for second place at the 2019 Illini Open at the University of Illinois on Saturday evening.
The Broncos finished with 102 points, tying South East Missouri and finishing behind host Illinois. WMU finished ahead of Murray State, Saint Louis, Eastern Illinois, Butler and Northwestern. Western Michigan took home two event titles, winning the 4x400-meter relay and the shot put.
"I thought today was a very useful day," said head coach Kelly Lycan. "We did leave some points on the board that we could have used but we had people doing multiple events because they needed the work. We wanted to get a lot of work in to get some extra repetitions. It was a step up on competition and we will take another step up next week."
Sophomore Abena Atuobi came into the meet as the top-seeded thrower in the shot put and matched her seed, winning the event after throwing 46' 5.25" (14.15m). Freshman thrower Madison Ochs took ninth overall and eighth collegiately to earn a point for the Broncos in the weigh throw. She reached a distance of 47' 7" (14.50m).
"Abena has been really consistent and as a sophomore that's not usually the norm," Lycan added. "When you keep throwing those same good, quality throws week after week you know there is a big one waiting to pop."
The 4x400 squad of Erin Dowd, Diamond Mitchell, Taylor Rucker and Taneidra Cain all combined to run a time of 3:54.52, outpacing Murray State by over four seconds.
All four also scored in individual events. Dowd too second overall in the 200-meter dash after running a time of 25.20 seconds. She took third and set a new personal-best in the 60-metre hurdles, breaking the 9-second mark for the first time of her career at 8.9. Mitchell took eighth in the long jump, scoring with a distance of 17' 11.50" (5.47m), and took fifth in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.76 seconds. Rucker joined Dowd by scoring in the 60-meter hurdles after running a time of 9.28 seconds, while Cain took second place in the 400-meter dash with a time of 59.29 seconds.
Senior Sarah Anderson had the best performances out of the middle and distance runners, taking second overall in the mile run with a time of 4:54.89 seconds. Junior Juliane Sormain scored in the 800-meter run after finishing in fifth place with a time of 2:17.69. Freshman Chloe McEachern scored in the 600-meter run after taking fifth place with a time of 1:39.47
Anderson, Sormain, McEachern and Courtney Allen combined to take second in the 4x800-meter run, falling to Illinois by .01 seconds after running a time of 9:26.09. WMU had the lead up until the final leg when Illinois' Lauren Katz just out-stretched Allen for the win in the non-scored exhibition relay.
The Broncos continue to roll through Big 10 country next weekend, heading to Indiana University on Friday and Saturday.
