OWENSBORO, Ky. – With a cumulative total of 208 points piled up, Findlay locked in the program’s first championship title at the Great Midwest Athletic Conference Women’s Outdoor Track & Field meet that ended on Friday.
The Oilers had an impressive combination of performances at the Owensboro Track & Field Complex that resulted in a long parade of all-conference honors up at the awards podium.
Four different institutions have won the last four conference championship events dating back to 2017 with Cedarville. Hillsdale won in 2018 and Tiffin had an impressive performance in 2019 to beat the field.
This year, the Oilers took their turn as Hillsdale finished runner-up in the team point totals with 167. Walsh was third with 120 and in a very close fourth with 119 points was Tiffin. Rounding out the top five was Cedarville, host of the indoor conference championship meet earlier in the calendar year, with 67 points.
Findlay freshman Paige Emnett stole the show with first-place finishes in a pair of throwing events to earn status as both the Great Midwest Freshman of the Meet and Great Midwest Field Athlete of the Meet.
Emnett won the hammer throw with a distance of 54.28m and the discus throw with a distance of 44.45m. All told, she secured a total of 26 team points and was also third in the shot put competition.
Earning Great Midwest Track Athlete of the Meet honors was Tiffin’s Rajiah Andrews, who also blazed her way to the same award during the indoor conference championships.
This time, she scored 22.5 points for the Dragons with a first-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles (14.31), third-place finish in the 100-meter dash, fifth-place effort in the 200 and part of a winning 4x100-meter relay group.
Multiple performances landed in the top 10 or new conference meet record category, with each feat getting more and more difficult as the league continues to grow and expand. A total of 11 different conference meet records were set by the women in 2021.
The distance events were simply crushed as Malone’s Mackenna Curtis-Collins set conference meet records in the 1,500 and 5K while Findlay’s Gabrielle Lawrence established the new 10K record relatively early in the meet.
Walsh’s Alexa Leppelmeier posted the second fastest 3K steeplechase time in conference history in 10:21.66 while both 4x100 and 4x400 meter relay meet standards were shattered by Tiffin and Hillsdale, respectively.
Findlay’s Simone Green and Walsh’s Didi Anaraodo broke both the conference and meet records in the triple jump and shot put, respectively. Green had a provisional mark of 11.88m and Anaraodo blew away the shot put record in a new throws area on campus with a distance of 16.38m. The same dual records broken went for Findlay's pole vaulter Savannah Amato on Day 1 of the event.
Hillsdale freshman Eden Little was credited with a new meet record in the javelin and Walsh’s Alexandra Rodgers accumulated 4,707 points to set a new conference championship best total in the heptathlon.