St. Scholastica takes back UMAC Women's Outdoor Track and Field title
COLLEGEVILLE, Minn.---After holding just a 29-point lead after the first day of competition at the Upper Midwest Athletic Conference (UMAC) Women's Outdoor Track and Field Championships Friday, the College of St. Scholastica pulled away Saturday to take back the confernce title after missing out last season.
The Saints compiled 224 points to win by 68 points over surprising runner-up Bethany Lutheran College with 156. The Vikings' leap-frogged the University of Wisconsin-Superior by just 1.5 points Saturday.
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En route to victory, the Saints rode the strong performances of Taylor Gibson and Hannah Russert who added their second event wins of the meet and contributed two of the team's four victories on day two of competition.
Gibson scored a win in the 400-meter dash clocking in at 58.67. The senior finished her UMAC career winning both the 400-meter and 800-meter events at both the UMAC Indoor and Outdoor Championships. Russert was just as impressive as she broke her own meet record from last season recording a time of 15.06 in the 100-meter hurdles.
The champion Saints also got a solid win the 4 x 400-meter relay with a time of 4:01.71, while rookie Elizabeth Poskie won the 5,000-meter run with a time of 19:55.04 – the lone time under the 20-minute mark in the event.
Following a night of meet records Friday, Saturday saw just one other record in addition to Russert's as Hannah Goemann of the University of Minnesota Morris clocked in at 4:38.69 to set a new best by nearly nine seconds in the 1,500-meter run. Her time is also 41st in all of Division III.
Wisconsin-Superior also had a multiple event winner in Valerie Rowe who won the 100-meter dash in 12.88, while junior Svenja Ruehl picked up her lone event win of the meet taking the triple jump with a mark of 11.22 meters (36-9.75). Taylor Phillips also won the shot put for the Yellowjacketes with a mark of 12.56 meters (41-2.5).
Runner-up Bethany Lutheran got just one event winner, but scored a ton of points in that same event. Rookie Megan Rutt cleared 1.51 meters (4-11.50). Kari Marzinske matched Rutt's marked but finished second on number of attempts.
Defending champion Minnesota Morris had just one event win Saturday as it took the 4 x 100-meter dash with a time of 50.62. Martin Luther College boasts the final champion with Melissa Neumann grabbing the discus crown with a mark of 37.28 meters (122-4).
After Wisconsin-Superior in the standings, there was a slight drop off in the finishes with Minnesota Morris tallying 137 points for fourth. The gap increased from fourth to fifth as Martin Luther scored 51.5 points. The University of Northwestern got on teh board with 23 and Crown College had seven.
2017 UMAC Championship site