ROCK HILL, S.C. – The High Point University women's track and field team rolled on its way to another Big South Championship, scoring 249 points and outscoring second-place Campbell by 79 points.
Sydney Horn was named the Most Outstanding Athlete for recording the highest-ranked national mark at the meet while
Letizia Marsico earned Scholar-Athlete honors.
Head coach
Mike Esposito: "This is not an individual event, it's a team sport. We may not have won a bunch of races, but our depth and our overall team concept is what won. And that's a credit to our staff and our kids. We have a tremendous coaching staff and a tremendous group of kids, I can't say enough about all the people that helped us get here."
Holding a 33-point lead after day two, the Panthers began the final day of the conference championships with an individual title from
Sydney Koker in the high jump, as well as two top-eight finishes from
Marissa Blakely and
Ebba Ahman. Koker cleared 1.70m while Blakely went over 1.60m to tie her personal best. Ahman also cleared 1.55m.
The Panther women also picked up early points in the women's javelin.
Kelly Chaballa finished on the podium in third place with a mark of 38.54m while
Julia Newman was fourth at 37.77m.
Lilly Wolf finished fifth with a mark of 37.56m and Marsico was seventh with a throw of 35.11m. Marsico also finished top-eight in the discus, finishing fourth with a toss for 46.25m while
Amanda Scattergood was eighth at 41.62m.
As running events started on the track, the women's 4x100m relay team of
Lindsay Cooper,
Dae'Nitra Hester, Blakely, and
Alicia Dawson ran to a new school record time of 46.09 seconds, beating the previous time set in 2022 at the conference championships by .08 seconds. Cooper, Ahman, Blakely, and Hester went on to break the 4x400m relay school record as well, running to a 3:41.74 second-place finish.
Hester also broke two more records on the day in the 200m dash and her own record in the 400m dash. She now holds records for 23.94 seconds in the 200m and 53.65 seconds in the 400m, good for an individual title. Blakely also ran in both events and made the podium in the 400m dash as well, finishing in 54.73 seconds. She finished eighth in the 200m in 24.79 seconds.
Cooper and Ahman ran to big finishes in the 100m hurdle and the 400m hurdle races. Cooper improved her 400m hurdle time by a half-second to finish second overall in 48.97 seconds while Ahman was third in 1:00.47. Cooper also finished second in the 100m hurdles in 13.71 seconds while Ahman was sixth in 14.23 seconds.
Moving to middle distance races,
Nikki Frail ran to a new personal best time of 2:09.81 in the 800m run to take second place in the event.
Camryn Harper finished her career on the podium as well, crossing the finish line in 2:11.97 while
Mikayla Moxley (2:12.74) and
Joanna Poland (2:12.86) were fourth and fifth, respectively. Moxley and
Olive Allen ran to top-six finishes in the 1,500m run as well. Allen was the runner-up in 4:28.00 while Moxley was sixth in 4:36.80. Allen combined with
Lindsey Ickes,
Katie Taylor,
Alyssa Deeds, and
Charli Montalvo for the 5,000m run, claiming five of the eight scoring positions in the event. Ickes was the runner-up after winning the 10,000m run on Wednesday night while Allen finished third in 17:04.56. Taylor finished in 17:25.73 for fourth place, Deeds was sixth in 17:46.33, and Montalvo was eighth in 17:54.45.
Up Next: A handful of High Point University track and field athletes will compete at Diesel's Last Chance Meet on Sunday, May 14
th, in an effort to qualify as many athletes for the First Round of the NCAA Outdoor Championships. Field events are set to begin at 11:00 a.m. on Sunday while running events are slated for a 3:00 p.m. start.
#DefendTheTeam x #GoHPU
