The Lee University women’s track & field team claimed wins in six of 16 events on its way to posting its second consecutive Gulf South Conference Indoor Track & Field Championship Wednesday at the Birmingham CrossPlex. The Lady Flames added three second place finishes and six third places to help push their point total to 176. Mississippi College finished second with 121 points, while Alabama Huntsville and Christian Brothers tied for third with 90 points each.
“Just a phenomenal team effort,” said Lee head coach Caleb Morgan.
“Everybody stepped up and obviously we needed to overperform with Celine (Ritter) not in the lineup. We always seem to overperform on conference day.”
Toni Moore collected two first place finishes. She won the 5000-meter run with a GSC Indoor Championship and Lee record time of 16:55.48. The time met the NCAA Division II provisional qualifying time of 17:25.97 and is the seventh-best time posted in DII this season. She added another GSC Indoor Championship record in the mile run after stopping the clock at 5:07.01.
Chloe Flora (17:15.88) was third in the 5000. Olivia McLain was fifth (17:23.08) and Audrey Royer placed eighth (18:06.81). Danielle Horter was the second Lady Flame to finish the mile. She finished sixth overall with a time of 5:19.15. Elizabeth Heckman was ninth (5:26.74) and Elizabeth Beckham was 13th (5:28.87).
Deborah Rubin posted a Lee record measurement of 17.16 meters to win the weight throw by 0.79 meters. Faith Lewis recorded a throw of 12.73 meters to finish seventh. Mattie Thomas placed 11th (11.33 meters) and Frederick’s throw of 10.83 meters put her in 14th.
Flora was the winner of the 3000-meter run with a meet record of 9:53.20. Moore placed third (10:03.06) with McClain in fourth (10:07.36) and Horter finished in sixth at 10:26.96.
Mikayla Beeler won the 400-meter dash with a time of 57.71 seconds. Jamaya Rand crossed the finish line at 1:00.06 for sixth.
The 4x400-meter relay team of Brooke Long, Rand, Carissa Hall and Beeler recorded a combined time of 3:59.13 to win the event. Beeler and Rand joined Beckham and Heckman to place second in the distance medley relay with a time of 12:53.77.
Long, Hannah Wright and Liezl Theron were Lee’s representatives in the 60-meter hurdles. Wright finished fifth at 9.08 seconds. Long finished eighth (9.25) and Theron was ninth (9.73).
The Lady Flames advanced three of their four runners into the 60-meter dash finals. Baylie Murphy (7.78) was third in the preliminaries, Kyleeyah Whitehead placed fifth (7.87) and Kristen Blevins was seventh (7.81). Jaila Whitaker was 12th in the preliminaries with a time of 7.94 seconds. In the final, Blevins was third (7.76), Murphy placed fifth (7.84) and Whitehead was sixth (7.86).
Blevins added another third-place finish in the 200-meter dash. She completed the distance in 25.45 seconds. Beeler finished 10th at 26.15. Murphy (26.50) and Whitaker (26.54) were right behind in 11th and 12th, respectively.
Four Lady Flames competed in the shot put with Lewis leading the way with a 12.68 mark for second place. Rubin finished fifth with a throw of 11.53 meters. Thomas was 11th (10.46 meters) and Frederick was 12th with a throw of 10.27 meters.
Theron, Long and Hall finished in the top nine of the high jump. Theron cleared 1.60 meters for fourth place. Long was sixth at 1.50 meters and Hall had a successful high jump of 1.45 meters to place ninth. The threesome also was Lee’s representation in the long jump. Hall was third with a jump of 5.31 meters and Long was fifth at 5.23 meters. Theron’s long jump of 4.85 meters put her in 11th.
Hall’s triple jump of 11.36 meters was good for second place. Long placed third with a measurement of 10.84 meters. Murphy recorded a triple jump of 9.90 meters to finish fifth.
Student-athletes that finished first and second in their events were named First and Second Team All-GSC. The Lady Flames collected nine First Team All-GSC awards and six Second Team All-GSC awards. Beeler led the way with two First Team and one Second Team All-GSC honors. Moore grabbed two First Team honors. Rubin, Flora and Long were First Team All-GSC in one event each. Rand and Hall each tallied a First Team and a Second Team All-GSC award. Lady Flames collecting one Second Team All-GSC performance were Beckham, Heckman and Lewis.