By: Erin Madden
WESTERVILLE, Ohio - Senior All-Ohio Athletic Conference distance runner Hastings Marek (Pataskala/Watkins Memorial) broke a school record while the 16th-nationally ranked Baldwin Wallace University women's indoor track and field team claimed four total victories to place fifth overall at the 2021 OAC Indoor Championships, hosted by Otterbein University inside the Clements Recreation Center.
BW finished fifth of 10 teams with 64 points. Crosstown rival and fifth-nationally ranked John Carroll University took home the OAC team title with a total of 216 points.
The top three finishers in the individual events plus the top three relay teams each receive All-OAC honors.
After previously setting the 1,000-meter run school record earlier in the season, Marek improved upon her own record by three seconds to win the OAC title in the event in 2:57.87.
Marek also won the OAC title in the 1-mile run - the first individual title of her career - when she crossed the finish line in a time of 5:09.63. Freshman distance runner Hope Murphy (Mogadore) notched her first career OAC title as well as she won the 800-meter run in a career-best time of 2:19.31.
The distance medley relay team of Murphy, freshman distance runner Kamaria Montgomery (Louisville/Canton GlenOak), senior distance runner Molina Otte (Omaha, Neb./Millard West) and Marek got BW off to a great start on the track as they combined for the OAC title in a time of 12:32.14, marking the first time that the Yellow Jackets have won the event since 2011.
Junior All-OAC distance runner Alyssa Laughner (Howard, Pa./Central Mountain) earned her second indoor All-OAC honor in as many years as she placed third in the 5,000-meter run in a season-best time of 17:47.33. Her performance ranks as the eighth-fastest 5k time in all of NCAA Division III at the start of the meet. Otte collected her first individual All-OAC honor, indoor or outdoor, by finishing third in the 800 in a career-best 2:21.58 and holding off the fourth-place finisher by only .10 seconds. Laughner contributed two other points to the team total when she placed seventh in the 3,000-meter run in 10:34.71 while Montgomery also added one point for BW as she finished eighth in the 500-meter dash in 1:28.18.
Finishing off the night on the track, Otte, Montgomery, Marek and Murphy ran to a BW season-best time of 4:10.02 as the runners-up in the 4x400-meter relay and claimed even more All-OAC honors.
In the field, a pair of Yellow Jacket throwers qualified to the finals in their respective events. Sophomore Abby Rodriguez (Grandview, Wash./Prosser) scored the team's first point of the afternoon with an eighth-place finish in the shot put, hitting a mark of 37 feet, 5.75 inches. Meanwhile, freshman Maddie Liberati (Lisbon/David Anderson) had a huge first toss to send her to the finals of the weight throw, where she eventually placed ninth with a career-best mark of 43'7.75". Liberati came into the event ranked 18th in the OAC and improved upon her career best by almost four feet.
With the 2021 NCAA Division III Indoor Championships cancelled, BW will not compete again until the outdoor season on Saturday, March 20, at Marietta College inside Don Drumm Stadium.
