CHICAGO, Ill. – Dominique Thomas earned a first and second place finish to highlight the season-opening Blue Demon Holiday Invite for the Milwaukee women's track and field team.
 
"This is the first time in my five years as head coach at Milwaukee that we've gone to a December college meet. So, there's some unchartered territories but we felt like there was a lot of benefits early season," head coach Andrew Basler said. "We had some good results, some not so good, and some in the middle. We try to remind our team that it is early and keep perspective."
 
Thomas raced to a new personal-best in the 60-meter dash, winning the event with a time of 7.52 seconds. The sophomore also set a new PR in the 200-meter, placing second in 25.03.
 
Vanessa Laundrie also put together a solid meet with a sixth-place finish in both the 60-meter dash (7.76) and 200-meter (25.70).
 
Cloey Fare and Enné Burton qualified for the finals in the 60-meter hurdles, finishing sixth and seventh for the Panthers. Fare crossed in 8.81 with Burton right behind at 8.92.
 
"Women's sprints and hurdles did really well highlighted by Dominique Thomas with a meet record and personal best in the 60 so that was a great showing by her to get her sophomore campaign started," Basler said.
 
In the 400-meter, Kortine Volk paced MKE with a new personal-best time of 59.44 to finish eighth while Katie Burns (10th) and Courtney Hoppe (11th) were right on her heels.
 
Faith Nead saw her first action on the track for the Panthers and placed fourth in the 800-meter run in 2:28.81.
 
Aubrey Anderson paced MKE in the 600-meter, finishing fifth in 1:39.57 for a new personal record.
 
The Panthers' 4x400-meter relay team raced to a second-place finish in 3:58.16 just behind Indiana State.
 
Milwaukee put together solid results in the field including Lauren Lietzke's third-place finish in the weight throw (16.65 meters). Cynthia Hernandez (15.34 meters) and Samantha Satterfield (14.57 meters) also finished in the top 10.
 
Lietzke also led the Panthers in the shot put, finishing 10th in 12.69 meters.
 
In the long jump, Maddy Troy reached the podium with a second-place finish. Troy reached 5.64 meters while Nadia Vo finished sixth with a 5.54-meter mark.
 
Annie Guerrero and Macy Woodward recorded top-five marks in the high jump. Guerrero came in second at 1.68 meters with Woodward's 1.60 meters putting her fifth.
 
A trio competed in the triple jump for MKE with Morgan Pilate's third-place mark of 11.91 meters pacing the way. It marked an indoor career-best for Pilate and puts her 10th in program history.
 
Adaline Powell (11.68 meters) and Olivia Busch (11.07 meters) finished sixth and 10th, respectively.
 
"In the field events, we've been strong in the high jump, and I thought Annie Guerrero coming back started her season off really well," Basler said. "Freshman Macy Woodward did really well in her first college meet keeping calm. We are looking forward to her stepping into a big role. Overall, pretty happy with the results considering the early December meet. It showed what things we need to work on and grow from in order to be in a better place when we start competing next January."
 
Following a holiday break, Milwaukee will return to the track on January 14 at the Midwest Invite hosted by Wisconsin.