Over the past three weeks, the Michigan women’s track and field team has competed in a string of home invitationals, continuously displaying its strength across different events. And coming off of a first-place finish at the Simmons-Harvey Invitational, the Wolverines’ performance this week was no different.
Michigan ended with 12 podium finishes and an impressive sweep of the shot put in the two-day, nonscoring Michigan Invitational.
Achieving a podium finish in the first event, seniors Clare McNamara and Mia Manson competed in the pentathlon. McNamara ended the event with personal bests in the shot put and high jump while Manson ended with personal bests in the 60 meter hurdles, shot put and long jump. But despite their fortitude, Wisconsin’s Shaina Zinter edged past both, with McNamara clinching a second-place finish.
“I think high jump was like a really big day for me since I PRed in the event and it was a lot of points,” McNamara. “In hurdles, there’s definitely a lot of room for improvement especially because little changes can make big points. There’s lots of room for improvement in the shot put and long distance as well.”
On the track, the Wolverines continued to assert themselves ahead of the pack with senior Aasia Laurencin recording the fastest prelim time in the 60 meter hurdles. Building on her momentum, she finished the finals the next day with a stadium and a meet record of 8.11 seconds.
Aiming to outdo their teammates’ record-breaking performances, senior Maria Deaviz, graduate Corinne Jemison and sophomore Trinity Franklin placed first, second and third respectively. In addition, Deaviz, Franklin and freshman Elizabeth Tapper — who placed fifth — all ended with personal bests.
“We kind of know what we have with Corinne, she’s a big time scorer,” Michigan coach Kevin Sullivan said. “Maria has been coming off a pretty serious injury last year and so this is her second weekend out. Things are really progressing well for her, so it’s always nice to see some of that later on.”
Finishing off the field events, sophomore Gabi Newman placed second in the high jump with a personal best while freshman Kaitlin McHale came in second in the pole vault.
All in all, the Wolverines thrived during their field events. Building off of each others’ performances, multiple Michigan competitors accomplished personal bests through mutual motivation, resulting in a hefty amount of podium finishes.
However, the Wolverines’ biggest strength was in their distance running.
Junior Samantha Hastie placed third in the mile with a personal best of 4:40.45 while freshman Sidney Green placed first in the 400 meters with a time of 54.71 seconds. Flexing her prowess, Green also reached second in the 200 meters.
“I’m slowly putting the pieces together and getting a rhythm of things again, because between (the invitational) last week (and the Michigan invitational) it was like a very hefty time for running the 400,” Green said. “Just knowing that like we’re putting pieces together and that everything is coming is what’s contributing to me running faster.”
Despite all the impressive performances throughout the meet, there were small moments that highlighted room for improvement for Michigan — including a need to clean up certain performances in the distance and jumping events.
While the Wolverines will no longer have the comfort of a home-field advantage in the near future, they hope to remain comfortably on the podium — as they were this weekend.