RIPON, Wis. – The Milwaukee women's track and field team competed at the Red Hawk Invite on Saturday, finishing first in the field of 12 teams.
The Panthers tallied 211 points to finish first at the meet, with UW-Oshkosh at second with 103.5 points. Host school Ripon came in at third with 50.5 points.
Milwaukee had several strong performances in the field events, including a first-place finish from
Kate Watson in the pole vault with a leap of 3.75m.
Annie Guerrero finished first in the high jump at 1.66m with
Natalie Block closed behind for second at 1.61m.
"Feel both teams continue to take great steps forward as we inch closer to conference championships," head coach
Andrew Basler said. "We had a lot of good performances today, just kind of setting ourselves up to do well in three weeks at conference."
In her season debut,
Jakara Edwards-House won the long jump with a leap of 5.18m. The team saw success in the triple jump as well, recording the top three finishers.
Morgan Pilate placed first at 11.57m with Chime Udaku (11.20m) and
Aubrie Gorski (10.78) finishing right behind.
Pilate built upon her day with a win in the 60m hurdles, racing to a season-best time of 8.91 seconds. In the same event, Adrienne Burton (9.07 seconds) and
Cloey Fare (9.27) finished third and fourth, respectively.
"
Morgan Pilate broke through today," Basler said. "Today she ran something that we saw she was capable of. So that was great to hit that time."
Block and
Anya Athan each recorded lifetime bests in the 400m, with Block finishing first at 56.60 seconds. Athan (59.51 seconds) placed second, and
Courtney Hoppe came in at third with a time of 1:00.22.
Dominique Thomas crossed the line first in the 60m dash with a time of 7.73 seconds and Vanessa Laudrie won the 200m at 26.09 to round out the Panthers who collected individual victories. Athan tallied her second runner-up finish in the 200m, placing behind Laundrie with a time of 26.26.
Milwaukee will split the team next weekend, with some team members heading to the Friday Big Meet hosted by Grand Valley State while others compete at Hoosier Hills hosted by Indiana. The Friday Big Meet will begin at 10 a.m. with the Hoosier Hills scheduled to begin at 4 p.m.
"We look forward to splitting the squad up, sending our sprinters, hurdlers, and distance to Grand Valley State to get on a 300m track and our field athletes heading down to Indiana," Basler said. "Looking forward to continuing to push these marks as conference is fast approaching."
