BEREA, Ohio - The Wilmington College women's track & field team tallied its highest finish in an Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC) Outdoor Track & Field Championship event since 2015, scoring 60 points to place fifth on Friday.
The Fightin' Quakers finished five points clear of Otterbein University and more than doubled the bottom four finishers. The University of Mount Union won the meet with 258 points while John Carroll University came in second with 198.5 points.
"I'm so proud of both teams and the effort they gave over the last two days," Head Coach Ron Combs said. "We had an amazing meet, hitting our goal of a top-five finish."
Both of the Wilmington relay teams earned All-OAC honors and were coincidentally compromised of the same four individuals. Emma Burke, Haley Cook, Madison Dietz and Kyle Schafer ran the 4-x-100-meter relay in 49.49 seconds to finish runner-up and crossed the finish line in 4:13.33 in the 4-x-400-meter relay to place third. Burke and Schafer also competed in a pair of individual finals on the day. Burke, a fifth-year senior, placed fourth in both the 100-meter hurdles (15.57 seconds) and the 400-meter hurdles while Schafer was seventh in the 200-meter dash (26.77 seconds) and the 400-meter dash (1:02.63).
Milena Wahl rounded out the Quakers' day on the track by competing in a difficult double - the 1,500-meter and 5,000-meter runs. Wahl broke her own school record in the 1,500-meter run by over five second by crossing the finish line in 4:46.31 for a sixth-place finish while placing eighth (18:09.98) in the 5,000-meter run.
In field events, Kayli Sullivan earned two All-OAC honors with a runner-up throw of 154' 5.5" in the hammer throw and a third-place heave of 37' 11" in the shot put. Teammate Lexi Grice also placed in the hammer throw, earning her team points with a sixth-place throw of 136' 4.25". Madison Dietz placed fifth in the triple jump with a leap of 33' 7.5".
"It seemed like everyone one of our athletes had a phenomenal performance in whatever event we were doing at that time, despite the conditions," said Combs. "There is nothing I would change about what we did on either side. I won't stop smiling for the rest of the weekend!"
Wilmington will send individuals to the Carius/Gregory Invitational hosted at North Central College (Illinois) next weekend.
