CHARLESTON – The Northern Illinois women's track and field team raced to a third-place finish at the Eastern Illinois Early Bird Invitational as the Huskies recorded a school record and multiple personal-best marks to open their season Friday night.
The Huskies scored 81.5 team points, finishing ahead of Western Illinois (56.5), Butler (52), and DePaul (46). Indiana State won with 204.5 points, while Eastern Illinois took second with 159.5 points.
"Overall I am very pleased with how we performed today," said track and field coach Connie Teaberry. "We will use today as a gauge to see where we are competitively. We know what we need to do over break, but I know as coaches we are pleased with our first competition."
Competing in her first indoor track competition, Megan Gregory shattered a five-year old school record in the 60-meter hurdles when she finished the race in a time 8.95, to place third. Roneisha Frye also recorded personal-best mark in the event, when she finished the race in seventh-place time of 9.16.
In the 60-meter dash, three Huskies recorded personal-best records, while finishing among the top-ten performers at the competition. Rasheta Butler led the way for the Huskies in the 60m, finishing the race in a fourth-place time of 7.87, after setting a personal-best mark of 7.83 in preliminaries.
Chanel Kellyman ran the race in a personal-best time of 7.91, to finish sixth in the event. Following closely behind was Rhonda Lee who ran a time of 7.78 in the preliminary races, finishing just four one-hundredths shy of a school record, before finishing the race in a seventh-place time of 7.83.
The Huskies raced to a great start in the 200-meter dash, after Butler, Gregory, and Kellyman finished second, third, and fourth respectively in the event. Butler ran a time of 26.13, while Gregory finished the race in a time of 26.30. Kellyman recorded a PR of 26.56 in the event.
The freshman class made their mark in the 400-meter dash when Camille Smith finished the race in a fifth-place time of 60.28, while teammates Jenna McCalla (seventh) and Rebecca Cronin (eighth) followed closely behind with times of 60.78 and 61.01, respectively.
In the high jump, Kelly Moser took fourth place with a 5-01 effort, while Rachel Pinson notched a personal-best mark of 4-09.00 to place ninth.
The Huskies also saw success in throws. Competing in the pole vault, Patty Bautista and Liz Danley tied for seventh with a mark 8-06.25. In the shot put, Mary Bull and Tiffany Wallick notched personal-best marks with throws of 38-11. 00 and 35-2. 00, respectively.
