MADISON, Wis. – In the final meet before the Horizon League Championships, the Milwaukee women's track and field team broke a pair of school records at the St. Valentine's Invitational Friday evening.
The Panthers completely rewrote the throws record book, breaking both the shot put and weight throw school record.
Lauren Lietzke tossed a record in the shot put with a throw of 14.67m, finishing sixth. Lietzke breaks the previous record of 14.29m set in 2016 by Kamry Gipson. Lietzke also posted a new season-best in the weight throw at 16.84m, good for 12th at the meet.
Samantha Satterfield broke the school record in the weight throw, finishing ninth with at 17.83m. The throw shattered Nancy Harmon's record that had stood since 2012 of 17.73m.
"Today was a tune-up meet as we head into conference championships and things went really well for us," Head coach
Andrew Basler said. "We went in hoping to increase our performances, and that happened in some key events for us. I think the women's throwers showed out today. Two school records and I know they've been close all year and things are starting to come together at the right time for that throws group."
Milwaukee continued to find success in the field event, as
Olivia Busch and
Maddy Troy both earned first-place finishes. Busch won the triple jump at 11.50m while Troy claimed victory in the long jump with a leap of 5.71m.
Morgan Pilate (11.41m) finished runner-up in the triple jump and
Natalie Block (5.55m) and
Kortnie Volk (5.46) followed behind Troy in the long placing third and fourth, respectively.
Block tallied another first-place finish in the 60m hurdles, racing to a time of 8.53 seconds. The Panthers had a strong showing in the event, with
Cloey Fare finishing third at 8.84 seconds and Enne Burton fourth at 8.88 seconds.
In the 3000m run,
Emily Burns recorded the top time on the season for MKE, crossing the line at 10:22.69 for 11th.
Eileen Tocco ran to the second-best time of the season in the one mile at 5:14.03.
Rounding out the field events,
Annie Guerrero finished second at 1.64m and
Kate Watson tallied a third-place finish in the pole vault at 3.82m.
Milwaukee heads to the Horizon League Championships next weekend hosted by Youngstown State. The two-day meet begins next Saturday, February 26 at 8 a.m. and concludes Sunday, February 27.
"All in all, we have a pretty good idea of our travel squad," Basler said. "We fell the group that we're going to be taking to Youngstown State in going to compete for a championship. Really excited with where we are right now."
