Track & Field Places Third At MAC Championships For Best Result In 19 Years

Saturday, February 24

Bowling Green, Ohio

TBA

Bowling Green State University

MAC Indoor Championships

Photo by: Scott W. Grau

Track & Field Places Third At MAC Championships For Best Result In 19 Years

February 24, 2018 | Women's Track and Field

By: by Jason Knavel, Assistant Athletic Director for Athletic Communications

Bowling Green, Ohio – Aliyah Gustafson won a championship Saturday and the Bowling Green State University track and field team posted its best result at the Mid-American Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships since 1999. The Falcons finished third overall with 68 points. Both the final place and final point total were the most for BG since winning the league championship in 1999 with 110 points.

Gustafson, who placed second in the weight throw Friday evening, won the indoor shot put MAC Championship with a throw of 16.75m (54-feet-11.5). It is Gustafson's second MAC title after winning the outdoor shot put championship in 2016.

FINAL RESULTS (.PDF)
DAY ONE PHOTO GALLERY (MORE PHOTOS COMING)

TEAM SCORING

Eastern Michigan won the MAC Championship with 154 points, followed by Akron at 76. Bowling Green was third with 68 points, just ahead of Kent State at 64.
Toledo scored 55 points to place fifth and was followed by Central Michigan (52), Northern Illinois (45) and Western Michigan (42). Buffalo placed ninth with 36 points and the scoring was rounded out by Miami (33), Ball State (25) and Ohio (13).
Bowling Green's 68 points was 24 more than a year ago. Since the Falcons won the MAC title with 110 points in 1999, BGSU's highest point total had been 45 points in 2011.

BGSU'S 1-2 PUNCH

Aliyah Gustafson and Elizabeth Iversen combined to score 18 points in the shot put as the duo finished in first and second. Only Eastern Michigan's distance runners and Akron in the pentathlon were able to earn the top two spots in events during the weekend.
Neither Gustafson nor Iversen were really threatened for their spots. On their first throws, they moved into the top two spots and never relinquished them. Gustafson won at 16.75m (54-11.5) and Iversen was second at 15.82m (51-11). Akron's Olivia Snyder was third at 15.12m (49-7.25).
After scoring 32 points on the opening day of the MAC Championships, the shot put was the first completed event of day two and gave Bowling Green 50 points to surpass last year's scoring total.

THE SURPRISES

Bowling Green picked up 14 points in surprising fashion behind career-best performances from Stacey Wolverton, Kyla Paster and the 1600 relay team.
Wolverton posted arguably the most surprising performance of the MAC Championships when she finished third in the high jump.
Seeded No. 14 in the high jump, Wolverton crushed her previous personal best of 1.64m by clearing both 1.67m and 1.72m. The team earned six points for that result.
While Kyla Paster is a veteran of MAC Championship meets, she entered the meet seeded No. 8 in the triple jump with a career-best leap of 11.84m. She surpassed that on her first jump of the day and then went to 12.06m (39-6.75) on her second jump to place fifth overall and get four team points. Paster moved up from fifth to third in program history in the event.
BGSU's 1600 relay team consisted of sophomores Chasatea Brown and Brianna Tidmore, along with freshmen Savannah Nevels and Ryen Draper. The relay team was seeded No. 10 entering the meet but the Falcons posted the second-fastest time in school history at 3:47.06 to finish fifth and secure third place in the team standings.

OTHER SCORING EFFORTS

After qualifying for the 60 hurdles finals on Friday, Peyton Lee placed sixth in 8.56 seconds for three team points.
Ryen Draper had also qualified for finals Friday in the 400 and she ran the event in 57.25 seconds to end eighth.

VICARS EARNS POST-MEET AWARD

Second-year throws coach Derrick Vicars was named the Mid-American Conference Assistant Coach of the Year after Bowling Green's throwers scored 34 points and earned a first-place finish, two second-place results and a fourth-place finish.
Bowling Green's 34 points were easily the most scored by a throws unit at the meet. Akron, Kent State and Buffalo all got 10 points from their throws groups for the second-most at the meet.
Exactly half of the team's 68 points at the meet came from the two throws.

IN COACH SNELLING'S WORDS

"The goal is to try to be a balanced program to be successful across all three seasons (cross country, indoor, outdoor). It's hard to see sometimes the 75 steps that have to happen to get to this point and the thousands and thousands and thousands of good decisions that have to be made to get to this point. In this particular scenario, it's worked."
"Expectations were through the roof (for Aliyah Gustafson and Elizabeth Iversen). Liz didn't have the day she wanted to have yesterday. Sometimes that's hard to bounce back. She obviously did and they took care of business. That was a great start to the day in continuing to build momentum."
"Every once in a while in a coaching career, you have this really special thing happen that you weren't expecting. That was it today for us (Stacey Wolverton placing third in the high jump). Nobody penciled her in for third in the conference. She was a walk-on who found us. She's developed over time. It was very impressive."

UP NEXT

Aliyah Gustafson will get final confirmation of qualification to the NCAA Indoor Track & Field National Championships in the shot put March 9-10 at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas.
The rest of the team will begin preparations for the outdoor track and field season.