Women's Track & Field | January 11, 2020

KALAMAZOO, Mich. --  The Western Michigan track and field team kicked off the 2020 indoor season with an intrasquad meet at University Arena on Saturday. The Brown team defeated the Gold team 70-64 on the day.

WMU also named its captains for the season with the team voting Haley Ritsema, Brittney Hall, Juliane Sormain, Erin Dowd, Riley Wilhelm and Erica Sheahan to lead them this season. Ritsema, Hall and Sormain also served as captains during the cross country season.

"First and foremost, their work ethic speaks for themselves," said head coach Makiba Batten on the six captains. "It was a unanimous vote by our team. They get on the track and they get it done. The group is also good at pulling their teammates up to help them step up their game in practices and competition."

Sheahan had one of the standout performances on the day in the long jump. She reached a distance of 19 feet, 2 inches (5.84 meters). It took the senior four meets to break 19 feet last season.

"We got some good feedback from our student-athletes today," added Batten. "The energy was great and it was very well put together. A lot of our athletes improved marks from the beginning of the last indoor season and I think our assistant coaches did a phenomenal job coaching them up and being able to see what we need to coach them up on. Our student-athletes showed today and they looked like a team."

The season continues on next week as Western Michigan heads to Youngstown State University next Saturday for the YSU Collegiate Invitational.