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Lady Cougars capture five titles at Region VI Outdoor Track and Field Championships

Lady Cougars capture five titles at Region VI Outdoor Track and Field Championships
Posted: May 02, 2015

The Barton Community College women's track and field team captured five region championships this past weekend at the 2015 NJCAA Region VI Outdoor Track and Field Championships held at BG Products Veterans Sports Complex in El Dorado, Kansas.  With fifteen community colleges and over 500 men's and women's athletes, the national No. 7 ranked Lady Cougars finished third in the region as a team and second in the Jayhawk West standings.   National qualifiers for Barton will spend the upcoming weeks preparing for the NJCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field National Championships set to run May 14-16, at Gowans Stadium in Hutchinson, Kansas.

The Lady Cougars concluded Saturday's action with a win in the 4x400m Relay.  The freshmen team of Widline Lageroy, Tamara Style, O'Neisha Glover and Brooklyn Polk narrowly edged out runner up Coffeyville Community College by 6 tenths of a second at 3:51.29.  The win would move the Cougars to 113 points, good for third place in Region VI, behind Coffeyville and Cloud County Community College.

Style, Lageroy, and Glover were joined in the 4x100m Relay team by Danashka Lawrence as they sped to a third place time of 47.9, just a half second behind the team's 11th ranked national mark set at the Alabama Relays.  Also in the relays, the 4x800m team of Holly Pierce, Trenna Cox, Julee McAtee, and Yazmin Rendon picked up a point with an 8th place finish in a time of 10:47.65.

The distance runners tallied four wins and two runner up finishes.  Great Bend native Kaitlynn Tuey got finals started with a victory in the 10,000m run.  The race proved to be a team effort though as Tuey and Barton sophomore Lydia Mato ran together for the entire race, slowly distancing themselves from the rest of the field.  Mato would eventually finish second in a time of 41:56.21, while Tuey took the win in 41:55.94.  The 10,000m race was just the beginning for the duo though.  Mato went on to win three other individual events in the 800m, 1500m and the 5000m to earn the distinguished award of Most Female Points scored.  In a tactical race, Mato out kicked the field in the 5000m in 20:22.33 with Tuey finishing sixth at 21:45.02.  Mato did not have to outkick the field in the 1500m as she set a fast pace from the beginning, covering the distance in 4:42.25 to win by 24 seconds.  Pierce just missed team points finishing 9th in a time of 5:29.89.  

Pierce's big day came in the 3000m Steeplechase setting a personal best and national qualifying time of 12:26.71 in finishing second while Rendon came in 11th in 15:06. 

Mato also out-paced the field in her first and only 800m of the outdoor season, running 2:18.35 to beat Cloud County's Stephanie Barrett.  McAtee and Cox also competed in the event running 2:38.05 and 2:43.28 to finish 15th and 22nd respectively.

In the field Tasha Frazier got things started with a 5.57m (18-03.25) leap in the long jump but was unable to better the mark over the next five jumps and finished second.  Lawrence also made finals in the long jump, hitting a 5.00m (16-05.00) mark on her second attempt of the day in finishing out of the points with a ninth placing.  

Setting a new collegiate best, Bethany Bowman finished fourth in the High Jump at 1.61m matching the national qualifying height standard.  Despite having only one failed attempt at 1.61, Bowman placed fourth in a three way tie due to misses on the height.  

In the Hammer Nicole Kruse finished in10th place with a toss of 42.16m (138-04), narrowly missing the finals.  Cox would finish 15th in the Javelin with a throw of 29.59m (97-01).

On the sprints side Frazier began the meet with a new personal best in the 100m Hurdles during the preliminary round, running a second best qualifying time of 14.27.  Frazier would once again better her time in finals, running 14.09 to hold on for the region's second place.  Style also picked up a runner up finish in the 400m Hurdles, running 1:02.13.  

In the open 400m Lageroy's 58.65 placed second while teammates Glover and Polk would finish 9th and 10th, running 59.91 and 59.96 respectively.  Lageroy would also run 25.52 in the prelims of the 200m just missing the final cut, while Danashka Lawrence would run 12.64 in the prelims of the 100m.