The women’s track team performed well in front of a large home crowd Saturday at the Perry Fieldhouse, as they placed third in the All-Ohio meet with four individual wins and one relay win.
The Falcons finished 97 points behind Cincinnati with 140 and All-Ohio champion Miami with 150.
“I’m happy with their effort overall,” said coach Cami Wells. “They’ve done a great job all year.”
It was the usual suspects taking top honors for the Falcons as Jamie Roflow won the mile, Jessica White won the 200-meter and placed second in the 60-meter dash, and Nicole Standback won the 60-meter hurdles, in a typical, nail-biting fashion by .02 seconds.
But possibly the biggest thing to take place was TaKarra Dunning’s performance in the shot put. Dunning, who threw the shot put 15.2 meters, beat her old personal record by over 3.5 feet to become All-Ohio champion. The throw was enough to beat second place by over three feet and put her close to provisionally qualifying for the national indoor meet (15.4 meters), making her “happy, tired, excited” all of the above.”
Kim Settle, Jamie Roflow, Yemoja Marotta and Danielle Thornton won the Distance Medley Friday in a time of 12:03.85, the best Distance Medley time for the Falcons since the team of Joy Echler, Christine Thompson, JoVonne Houpe and Anna Schweitermann in 2001.
“It was really exciting,” Roflow said. “I don’t think any of us were expecting that.”
Roflow also won the mile Saturday, remaining undefeated this year with four individual wins and five overall wins with the relay. Roflow will be competing in the 5000-meter at the MAC meet after running mostly middle distance events to work on speed.
Jessica White came into the finals for the 60-meter dash with the best time, but Lashonda Davis of Miami would win in the finals. White did set a new school record though, in a time of 7.51.
White came back in the 200-meter determined and focused, and it paid off as she was crowned All-Ohio champion in a season best time of 24.85.
“My thought was just to go out and win, so that’s what I did,” White said.
This is not the first time White has clashed with Davis and it won’t be the last. White will face Davis in two weeks at the Mid-American Conference meet, but White’s not worried.
“I’m just going in there confident and relaxed not worrying too much about competition,” White said. “As long as I stay focused and do what I’ve been doing, I should be fine.”
Nicole Standback, after a shaky preliminary race, came back in the finals of the 60-meter hurdles and beat out Alissa Klaehn of Ashland by .02 seconds. Standback has only lost once in the hurdles this season and is expected to be on the podium at MAC.
“I’m going there to win obviously,” Standback said, “but in the hurdles I still have some things to work on.”
Other top performances for the Falcons came from Kim Settle placing fourth in the mile in a time of 5:08.8, a personal best, and Erica Wilson who had a personal best leap in the triple jump of 38′ 6″ and tied for seventh in the high jump.
The Falcons are riding a high wave of records and competitiveness as they prepare for the MAC meet in Akron on Feb. 23 and 24.
“They are in a positive state of mind and they are ready to go,” Wells said. “This is what we’ve trained for all year, so the preparation is taken care of. It’s just a matter of keeping people healthy.”
