BEXLEY, Ohio – The Baldwin Wallace University women's indoor track and field teams had three All-Ohio Athletic Conference performances that led to a fifth place finish at the two-day OAC Indoor Track and Field Championships, hosted by Capital University inside The Capital Center.
The Yellow Jacket women placed fifth of 10 teams with 73.5 points and Otterbein University took home the title with 144 points.
Following the meet, sophomore All-OAC thrower Brooke Buckhannon (Collins/Western Reserve) was named the Phil Gordan Field Athlete of the Year along with Wilmington College's Lauren Stacy.
Buckhannon and Jillian Roberts (Broadview Heights/Brecksville-Broadview Heights) got the meet off to a great start when both earned All-OAC honors in the shot put. Buckhannon won the event with a career-best throw of 44 feet, 3.5 inches first and Roberts placed third with a career-best 42'1.25" mark. Buckhannon's toss currently ties for the 13th longest throw in NCAA Division III this season.
Both the freshmen high jumpers in Heather Orr (Indianapolis, Ind./Perry Meridian) and Stephanie Magvas (Westlake/Magnificat) scored points for the Yellow Jackets with fifth and eighth place finishes. Orr cleared a career-best mark of 5'0.5" and Magvas came up just shot of her career best when she jumped 4'9.5". In the triple jump, junior Jessica Edwards (North Versailles, Pa./East Allegheny) earned two points with a leap of 33'8.5" for a seventh place finish.
After setting a personal best yesterday in the 60-meter dash preliminaries, junior sprinter Grace Nemeth (Medina) earned her first career All-OAC honors with a runner-up finish in the 200-meter dash in a career-best time of 26.11 seconds.
In the distance events, freshman Rebecca Penrose (Springfield/Shawnee) overcame Otterbein's Lindsey Ruff down the home stretch to take fourth in the 800-meter dash in a time of 2:23.32. Sophomore All-OAC distance runner Bella Pendola (Warsaw/River View) also brought home a fourth place finish in the 3,000-meter run, breaking her previous career-best that she set at last year's OAC Championships by running a time of 10:30.41. Freshman distance runner Madison Kile (North Canton/Hoover) also ran a career-best time of 5:17.71 in the 1-mile to place seventh.
The 4x200-meter relay team of Nemeth, freshman sprinter Ky'leana Allen (Columbus/Bishop Hartley), sophomore sprinter Beth Plas (LaGrange/Keystone) and senior sprinter Carlynn Arthur (Danville) placed fifth in a season-best time of 1:48.22. Arthur, Allen, Kile and Penrose also combined to run the 4x400-meter relay and took seventh place in 4:14.75.
Select members of the BW track and field teams will compete at a "Last Chance" meet on Saturday, March 3, to try and hit a qualifying mark for the 2018 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field National Championship meet.
