Complete USTFCCCA All-Region Honors
By: Erin Madden
NEW ORLEANS - Five Baldwin Wallace University women's indoor track and field student-athletes received a combined 12 U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Division III All-Great Lakes Region honors.
The top-5 individuals in each event from each region earned All-Region distinction, in addition to each member of the region's top-3 relay teams.
Senior All-Ohio Athletic Conference distance runner Hastings Marek (Pataskala/Watkins Memorial), junior All-OAC and Academic All-OAC distance runner Alyssa Laughner (Howard, Pa./Central Mountain), freshman All-OAC distance runner Hope Murphy (Mogadore), senior All-OAC distance runner Molina Otte (Omaha, Neb./Millard West) and junior All-OAC distance runner Natalie Vinci (Canton/St. Thomas Aquinas) combined for 12 of the total 573 All-Region accolades handed out by the USTFCCCA on the women's side.
Marek was recognized in the 800-meter run, 1-mile run and 3,000-meter run for her first career All-Region honors. The senior had a breakout season, winning OAC titles in the 1,000-meter run, the mile and the distance medley relay while also running the third leg of the runner-up 4x400-meter relay team. As a result, she was named OAC Indoor Distance Athlete of the Year. Marek also twice broke the school record in the 1,000-meter, the latest coming in 2:57.87 en route to her conference title in the event.
Laughner repeated as an All-Great Lakes Region selection in the 5,000-meter run while also garnering accolades in the 1-mile run and 3,000-meter run. She collected her second All-OAC honor in the 5,000 in as many years, placing third in a season-best time of 17:47.33.
Murphy capped off an impressive freshman indoor campaign by collecting her first two career All-Region honors in the 800 and the mile. The freshman won the OAC title in the 800 a career-best time of 2:19.31.
The distance medley relay team of Laughner, Vinci, Otte and Marek also garnered All-Great Lakes Region honors, which marks Vinci's second honor in the event and the first for Laughner, Otte and Marek. At the BW Mid-February Meet, the group posted a season-best time of 12:11.92, which was the fifth-best time in school history.
BW continues the outdoor season on Saturday, March 27, when the Yellow Jackets travel to Alliance for a meet at the University of Mount Union inside Mount Union Stadium.
