YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Milwaukee women's track & field team finished its weekend at the Horizon League Championships Sunday. The Panthers wrapped up a runner-up finish at the meet, totaling five individual titles over the three days.
 
Natalie Block brought in two of those championships today, starting in the 100m hurdles breaking her own league championship meet record with a dominating 13.16 performance. She continued her tremendous day by separating from the pack in the in 400m hurdles, clocking in at 57.86.
 
"Natalie ran a great 100m hurdles race and is really putting things together at the right time," said head coach Andrew Basler. "She had to fight through some technical issues in the 400m hurdles but still was able to fight through."
 
Joining Block in the finals of the 100m hurdles was Anna Szepieniec, finishing in 13.76 to claim fourth place. Szepieniec was also named the Women's Outstanding Field Performer of the Meet after winning the heptathlon and long jump on Saturday.
 
Earning Milwaukee's third title of the day was Olivia VanZeeland in the high jump, she cleared 1.75m to top the field.
 
"It was awesome to see Olivia claim the victory today after missing it so narrowly in the indoor season." Basler continued.
 
Anelise Egge had a s strong day, breaking the school record in the 1500m run after coming around for a runner-up finish in the race in 4:27.32. Her time takes down the previous record of 4:27.50, set by Tanaiya Fisher in 2011. She closed out her day by taking eighth in the 5000m run with a time of 17:38.28.
 
"I need to shoutout all our 5000m runners for persevering through heat we have not run in this year and battling hard." Basler added.
 
The Panthers were well represented in the triple jump, Morgan Pilate reaching 12.09m to claim second place to lead the way. Szepieniec added to her award-winning weekend with a leap of 11.99m to move her into tenth on the program's all-time leaderboard, and fourth on the day.
 
"After two days of the heptathlon, the long jump, and 100m hurdle prelims, Anna came back to nearly set a career-best in the 100m hurdle finals and have a great triple jump." Added Basler.
 
Katie Burns finished the 400m dash in 55.53 to lock up fourth place in the final round of the event. She doubled back for the 200m dash, notching a seventh-place finish at 24.69.
 
Burns also teamed up with Victoria Evtimov, Taylor Thimmesch, and Leah Handshoe to record the second best 4x400m relay time in school history at 3:47.15, and earn second place.
 
The 4x100m relay team of Burns, Evtimov, Isabel Roloff, and Angelica Refinski also combined for a runner-up finish with a 46.21 performance.
 
Running for the Black & Gold in the 800m run finals was Rachel Helm, she came around to finish in eighth place with a mark of 2:16.11.
 
Overall, the Panthers racked up 148 points across the three-day competition.
 
"The goal is to compete for Horizon League Championships each season and in that sense, we fell short. But that should not take away from the great effort our teams put forth this weekend to claim runner-up trophies." Basler concluded saying. "The overall energy and support was great and we had a lot of conference champions, all-conference, and end of the year awards. We will continue to find ways to improve as a program to put us in a position to get to the top of the podium."
 
UP NEXT
 
Athletes who have met the NCAA qualifying standards will advance to the NCAA West Regional Preliminary Rounds, held May 28-31 at Texas A&M's E.B Cushing Stadium in College Station, Texas.