Lohner, Riley lead women into first meet of season
The Central Michigan track and field team will open up the indoor season today in the annual Chippewa Open held in the Jack Skoog Indoor Track.
Last season, the women’s indoor team placed second, just seven points behind Kent State at Mid-American Conference championship meet. With key athletes like last season’s Most Outstanding Performer Erika Schroll gone, director Willie Randolph has some holes to fill.
“We’ve recruited 34 new athletes, so we filled the holes.” Randolph said. “Anytime you want to win a championship you’re going to (need) leadership. We graduated some pivotal people but we return a lot of people like Whitney Johnson, and we recruited a lot of the top athletes in the state like state champion Kelsey Ritter, Shawntoreah Turk and Kirlene Roberts from Trinidad and Tobago, who was a part of a national team.”
Among the team’s top returners are seniors Dierra Riley and Raeanne Lohner, while freshman Krista Parks looks to continue her incredible outdoor season. Parks earned first-team All-MAC honors after finishing seventh in the outdoor season.
CMU is among the top teams in the MAC vying for the conference championship this season. But it will have to contend against defending indoor and outdoor conference champions Kent State, perennial contender Eastern Michigan and rival Western Michigan.
“I don’t fear any team, any name or the level of competition because we prepare for all that so when we get ready to compete against that,” Randolph said. “We just go out and do the best we can.”
Today’s meet is small event that CMU uses as more of a scrimmage with other in-state schools, including Alma College and Lake Superior State. The meet will give a number of athletes on the men’s and women’s side to prepare for the upcoming season.
“The ideal focus is to have our athletes competing against each other,” Randolph said. “We split it up to a maroon and gold competition along with other teams. They can compete against each other and earn their spots. It gets them into great shape going into Christmas break because you’re just training up until this point.”
Senior sprinter/hurdler Brittnee Shreve looks to make her mark early in the season after finishing third in the 60-meter hurdles (career-best 8.63 seconds) and 60-meter sprint at the MAC Indoor Championships.
“I want us to go all the way this season,” Shreve said. “We came so close last year. We have a lot of people on this team with potential to go to Nationals, so that is my goal for myself and my team.”
