ROCHESTER, Mich. – The Milwaukee women's track and field team tallied a pair of individual victories on day three of the Horizon League Outdoor Championships, but the team dropped a spot in the standings late to finish third from the Elaine Leigh Track & Field Complex.
Youngstown State claimed its eighth consecutive Horizon League Championship, finishing with 252 points. Host school Oakland placed second with 145 points, just ahead of Milwaukee's 140.
The Panthers spent most of the afternoon in second place, but Oakland closed the gap to tie Milwaukee heading into the final event. The Golden Grizzlies finished four spots ahead in the 4x400 relay to earn the runner-up finish.
"I thought we had a great weekend," head coach
Andrew Basler said. "I don't think anything in particular happened that caused us to fall short. I think Oakland had a great weekend and we both stole points from Youngstown. Very proud of their effort and we had a lot of positive things happen."
Annie Guerrero claimed the Horizon League title in the high jump, jumping to 1.68m to open the day for the Panthers. It's the second high jump title for the senior over the course of her Milwaukee career after winning the event at the indoor meet in 2021.
Morgan Pilate took home the gold in the triple jump, posting a new personal best at 12.20m.
Olivia Busch also scored in the event, finishing fourth at 11.52m.
In the hammer throw,
Samantha Satterfield and
Lauren Lietzke recorded nearly identical marks to place third and fourth, respectively. Satterfield threw 50.84m while Lietzke was just behind at 50.82m.
Milwaukee's 4x100 relay team of
Maddy Troy,
Dominique Thomas,
Vanessa Laundrie, and
Mercy Ndon opened the running events with a third-place finish at 46.56 seconds.
The Panthers had four runners score in the 100 hurdles, led by
Cloey Fare's time of 14.26 seconds to place fourth. Pilate crossed the line next at 14.54 seconds for fifth, while
Brooke Crosby (14.81) and Enne Burton (15.89) were seventh and eighth.
Crosby added five points in the 400 hurdles, crossing the line at 1:03.43 for fourth.
In the distance finals,
Cailin Kinas (4:42.43) finished fifth in the 1500m while
Mikayla Fox (17:50.85) was seventh in the 5000m.
Two scored for Milwaukee in the 100m, with Thomas placing sixth at 11.86 seconds. Troy followed at 12.02 for eighth in the event.
The 4x400 relay was the final event of the meet, and the quartet of
Kortnie Volk, Burton, Crosby, and
Courtney Hoppe finished sixth with a time of 3:58.79.
"I told the team at the end to remember the feeling of not being that top team on the podium," Basler said. "We got to use that as motivation this summer. If they want to come back better than when they left that's the only way we can expect improvements to happen. I challenged the team with that after the meet."
The NCAA West Regionals are scheduled to run Wednesday, May 25 through Saturday, May 28 for selected athletes in Fayetteville, Ark. Milwaukee will look to improve upon its marks heading into next weekend at a last chance meet.
