Deborah Rubin and Celine Ritter posted gold medal performances to help the Lee University women’s track & field team to a first place standing following the first day of the 2021 Gulf South Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
The Lady Flames accumulated 35 points in three scored events to lead second place Shorter University (27) by eight points.
West Georgia is in third (17) and Alabama Huntsville is fourth (15) with Mississippi College (12) and Montevallo (11) in fifth and sixth, respectively.
Rubin finished first in the hammer throw with a Lee record toss of 49.60 meters. Mattie Thomas placed 10th with a throw of 34.73 meters and Sophie Frederick finished 13th with a mark of 31.72 meters.
Ritter led four Lady Flames in the 10000-meter run. She set a GSC Championships and Lee record with a time of 35.34.63. The previous records (35:46.68) were set by former Lady Flame Audrey Smith at the 2018 GSC Championships.
Olivia McLain followed Ritter in third at 37:04.31 and Audrey Royer was fifth with a time of 38:12.82. Elizabeth Heckman just missed scoring with a ninth-place time of 41:02.86.
Thomas and Frederick added five points to the team tally in the discus. Thomas’ throw of 34.51 meters put her in sixth, while Frederick placed seventh with a throw of 34.25 meters. Faith Lewis’ mark of 31.44 meters was 11th-best.
The Lady Flames advanced two of their four entries in the 200-meter dash out of the preliminaries and into the final. Kristen Blevins (24.76) was third and Carissa Hall (25.44) was eighth to qualify for Saturday’s final. Mikayla Beeler just missed qualifying with a ninth-place time of 25.45 seconds and Jaila Whitaker was 15th (25.93).
After the completion of four of the seven events in the heptathlon, Lee’s Liezl Theron and Brooke Long hold the top two positions. Theron recorded first place in the high jump and second in the 100-meter hurdles, shot put and 200-meter dash to accumulate 2758 points. Long placed first in the 100 hurdles and 200 events, third in the shot put and fourth in the high jump on her way to collecting 2642 points.
The final three events (long jump, javelin and 800-meter run) are scheduled to be completed on Friday, beginning at 12:15 p.m. EDT.
The preliminaries and final of the high jump are set for 4 p.m. with the triple jump and shot put at 7 p.m. The 100-meter dash preliminaries are set for 6:30 p.m. The 3000-meter steeplechase final is the last event of the night and is set to begin around 8:05 p.m.