Women use weekend events to improve personal bests

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The Central Michigan women’s track and field team continued to move forward in preparation for the Mid-American Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships.

This weekend, the track and field teams were in action at The Big Meet at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, while the throwers were at the Akron Invitational in Akron, Ohio.

“They meets this week all went very well,” said track and field director Willie Randolph. “We got a lot out of a variety of athletes with a lot of personal bests and got a lot of production this week.”

In Akron, CMU had its trio of senior throwers Whitney Johnson, Katie Christensen and Mykal Imbrock in action.

Johnson had the best day of the three, finishing sixth in her group for the weight toss with a throw of 53 feet, 6 1/2 inches. Christensen, however, placed the best in her group, finishing fourth with a toss of 53-3/4 feet.

Imbrock was the only one to throw in the shot put where she finished third with a toss of 11.50 meters; she finished seventh in the weight toss with a throw of 50-05.25 feet.

The rest of the team was in action at the Big Meet and it was a big day for Central Michigan at Grand Valley.

In the 400-meter junior Stephanie Hurley finished ninth with a time of 56.71 seconds, beating her old personal best of the by almost half a second. Freshman Kelsey Ritter finished with a time of 58.31 seconds, which cut of .32 from her best.

In the 800-meter, junior Christina Farrow cut 2.13 seconds off her best time, finishing eighth. Junior Charnele Lyons finished 14th with a time of 2:15.50, while senior Allie Sissions finished right behind her at 2:15.54. Junior Veronica Garcia also ran and finished with a time of 2:17.

Junior Maddie Ribbant ran the mile with a time of 4:59.96, beating her old time of 5:03.71.

Senior Danielle Dakroub ran the 5000-meter for the first time in her career and finished fifth with a time of 17:01.60, junior Holly Anderson finished 10th with a time of 17:17.96 abd Senior Brittany Dixon finished with a time of 17:34.79. The three times could place the women third through fifth in the MAC listings.

“It was nice having teammates there help me – it made the race much easier,” Dakroub said. “The nice thing about the 5K is that it’s a slower pace than the 3K but the last mile seems long”

Senior Raeanne Lohner finished seventh in the 3000-meter with a time of 9:45.33, which betters her personal-best this season by 16.32 seconds and could put her in the top of the MAC listings.

Senior Jordan Dunn just missed beating her best time this year (7.61) in the 60-meter dash finishing third in the event with a time of 7.62. Juniors Kirlene Roberts and Dierra Riley also ran in the even finishing sixth and eight.

In the field events, sophomore Tamica Harbour posted a personal best in the long jump with a leap of 18-03.75 feet.

In the high jump freshman Megan Heffner had a jump of 5-05.75 feet. Fellow freshman Samantha Stein placed just behind her with a jump of 5-03.75 feet. Their teammate junior Misha Lamphere also jumped 5-03.75.

Freshman pole vault Kelly Morrissey improved again on her personal best as she placed second with a height of 11-07.75 feet.

”I was really excited – my coach has really helped me with the technical parts,” Morrissey said. “The little things that really have shown to prove to make me better and preparing me for conference championships.”

Randolph was excited with his athletes this weekend and all of the personal bests that they got gearing up for their final home meet next week and the MAC championships at the end of the month.

“Right now I think all the pieces are coming together,” Randolph said. “Right now it’s about putting the right plan together in order to win MAC championships and I feel were going in the right direction.”