From Washington University Athletics
The Washington University in St. Louis men's and women's track & field teams combined to win 11 conference titles and post 29 all-UAA performances to lead both teams to runner-up finishes at the 2015 University Athletic Association (UAA) Outdoor Championships held Saturday-Sunday at Emory University.
The University of Chicago scored 193 team points to edge WashU (184) for the team title at the meet. Host Emory finished third with 138 points. On the men's side, Emory won the conference title with 197 points, while WashU was second with 184 and Chicago placed third with 109. It marked the fifth straight year that WashU has finished in the top-two in both the men's and women's team standings at the UAA Outdoor Championships.
The WashU women had eight conference champions crowned on day two of the meet Sunday, including setting four UAA records and three school records. The 400 relay team of sophomore Rebecca Ridderhoff, sophomore Kelli Hancock, junior Emily Warner and sophomore Daisy Ogede broke an 11-year-old school record to win the race in 48.09, more than 0.7 of a second ahead of runner-up Chicago. Ridderhoff, Hancock and Warner also teamed with junior Lane Porter to win the final race of the day, placing first in the 1,600 relay with a conference-record time of 3:53.01.
Ogede added a pair of individual titles for the Bears Sunday, winning the 100 in a UAA- and school-record time of 11.92, which was .35 of a second faster than the runner-up. Hancock edged Chicago's Alison Pildner by .003 to finish fifth in the 100. Ogede also won the 200 in 25.14, while Warner finished third in a time of 26.31 to also pick up all-UAA honors. Ogede added all-UAA honors with a third-place finish in the 100 hurdles (15.17), while Ridderhoff was fourth in 15.19.
Warner broke her own UAA and school record from 2013 to win the 400 in a time of 55.91, more than a second ahead of the runner-up. Hancock led four top-seven finishers for the WashU women in the 400 hurdles. She broke the UAA record to win the event in 1:01.49, the second-fastest time in school history. Ridderhoff ran a career-best time of 1:05.18 to finish third for all-UAA honors. Porter added a sixth-place finish with a season-best time of 1:07.81, while junior Kerrin Sunshine was seventh in 1:10.71.
In his first race in 2015, senior Drew Padgett clocked a time of 14:55.87 to win the UAA title in the men's 5,000. Junior Adam Streicher finished fifth in 15:27.68, while sophomore Ryan Becker was sixth in 15:28.09. Senior Lucy Cheadle won the women's 5,000 championship by nearly 27 seconds with a time of 17:38.74, while senior Julie Mulvaney-Kemp placed eighth in 18:43.08. Senior Melissa Gilkey accounted for the lone field-event championship for the WashU women at the meet, winning the javelin for the third year in a row with a toss of 39.30 meters. Junior Maisie Mahoney added a fifth-place finish with a mark of 31.89m.
The WashU men had four individuals race to runner-up finishes Sunday. Senior James Hallwood ran a season-best time of 10.84 to place second in the 100, while senior Nick Alaniva was seventh in 11.18. Hallwood added a fifth-place finish in the 200 with a time of 22.96. Senior Brendan Stone equaled his season-best in the 400 hurdles, finishing second in 54.12, while sophomore Phillip DeRenzo placed seventh in 57.92. Junior Josh Clark earned all-UAA honors with a runner-up finish in the 1,500 in a time of 3:53.62. Sophomore Dillon Williams added a seventh-place finish in the event in 3:59.40.
Sophomore Jack MacCarthy clocked a career-best time of 15.21 to finish as the runner-up in the 110 hurdles, while freshman Michael Billington added a fifth-place finish in 15.82. MacCarthy (13.36m), junior Alex Arteaga (13.24m) and sophomore Mark Terng (13.12m) all posted career-best marks to finish fourth, fifth and eighth, respectively, in the triple jump.
Sophomore Ashley Knudson earned the first individual all-UAA honor of her career, running a career-best time of 2:15.05 to place third in the women's 800. Freshman Annalise Wagner finished fifth in 2:19.72. The WashU women had six other top-eight finishes Sunday. Mahoney (1.60m) and sophomore Morgan Hess (1.49m) both cleared career-best heights to place fourth and tied for eighth, respectively, in the high jump. Mahoney also had a career-best performance in the triple jump, placing fifth with a mark of 10.70m, while freshman Julia Fraenkel tied for eighth with a career-best leap of 10.38m. Sophomore Betsy Wiener recorded a career-best throw of 33.74m to place fourth in the discus, and freshman Alison Lindsay finished eighth in the 1,500 with a time of 4:45.88.
The WashU men had eight other top-eight finishes during Sunday's competition. Sophomore Deko Ricketts ran a career-best time of 49.09 to finish fourth in the 400, while junior James Fitzhugh was sixth in 49.74. Junior Joey Pasque placed fourth in the high jump with a clearance of 1.86m, while Arteaga equaled his season-best of 1.81m to tie for eighth. Senior Zach Lonneman placed fifth in the discus with a mark of 40.03m. Junior Alex Bastian (1:56.38) and Clark (2:01.07) placed sixth and eighth, respectively, in the men's 800. Stone, Bastian and Ricketts also joined junior Britt Henderson to finish fifth in the 1,600 relay with a time of 3:21.53.