Bowling Green State University
Tom Wright Open
Falcons Hit MAC Qualifying Marks At Tom Wright Open
January 24, 2014 | Women's Track and Field
Bowling Green, Ohio - The Bowling Green State University indoor track and field team reached the Mid-American Conference automatic qualifying marks in three events and the Falcons finished second out of three teams at the Tom Wright Open Friday night.
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Miami won the meet with 132 points and Bowling Green followed with 115. Ohio was a distant third with 71 points.
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Junior Brooke Pleger, sophomore Alicia Arnold and freshman Rachel Durbin all hit MAC automatic qualifying marks at the meet. BGSU had hit that standard in just two events leading up to the meet and met the marks only once a year ago during the indoor season.
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Pleger, competing for the first time this year, won the weight throw with a toss of 61-feet-10 that easily met the qualifying mark and was just shy of her personal best. Teammate Tina Perrine placed third with a toss of 55-3.
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Arnold, who has already qualified for the MAC Championships in the 200, had the second-best long jump in program history, going 19-5 to win the event. That distance was 11 inches longer than her previous best, which came just a week ago at the Simmons-Harvey Invitational.
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Durbin, who had only competed collegiately as an unattached runner prior to Friday evening, set a tremendous pace in the mile and ran 4:57.57 to surpass the automatic qualifying mark by less than a second. She is the first BGSU runner to finish the mile in under five minutes since Nicole Farr did so at the 2011 MAC Championships.
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The Falcons also showed the depth that is being created in the program, posting strong marks in almost every event throughout the night. And most of those performances came from student-athletes who have much of their careers ahead of them.
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Bowling Green took the top three spots in the 400 as redshirt junior Brittany Sinclair, freshman Gabrielle Edwards and sophomore Taylor Rambo all finished in under 60 seconds. Sinclair led the way at 59.12.
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In the 60, senior Dana Gates ran a personal best 7.93 seconds to finish third and sophomore Kera Lamotte ended fifth in 8.01 seconds. Lamotte also ended second in the 200 in 26.17 seconds.
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In the 600, junior Natalie Sommerville set a new personal best with a time of 1:35.79 to place second. Redshirt sophomore Jasmine Redman won the 3,000 with a personal best time of 10:17.76 and redshirt freshmen Mackenzie McMillin, Amanda Garlak and Heather Baruxes placed third, fourth and fifth.
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In the 5,000, redshirt sophomore Andrea Alt ran a 17:48.04 to finish third in her first race this year, just shy of hitting the MAC automatic qualifying mark. Junior Krystin Reiser added a career best time of 9.41 seconds in the 60 hurdles and tied her season-best in the high jump at 5-3. Sophomore Tiera Parker won the triple jump for the second week in a row, leaping 37-1.25. Finally, freshman Makenzie Wheat set a new personal best in the shot put with a toss of 45-1 to finish second.
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Bowling Green will stay in Northwest Ohio next weekend, competing at the Findlay Open Friday.
