Thunderbirds arrive in style with CCC women's title
COMPLETE RESULTS (PDF)
FINAL TEAM SCORES – 1. British Columbia 180, 2. Eastern Oregon 165, 3. Southern Oregon 140, 4. College of Idaho 120, 5. Corban 68, 6. Oregon Tech 61, 7. Northwest Christian 56, 8. Warner Pacific 11, 9. Multnomah 10, 10. Northwest 8
ASHLAND – The British Columbia Thunderbirds made themselves at home in their first appearance in the Cascade Conference Women’s Track and Field Championships presented by U.S. Bank, topping the team standings when the dust cleared Saturday at Raider Stadium to end College of Idaho’s six-year title run.
UBC ended Friday in third place but produced champions in five track events on Day 2 of the 25th annual meet, finishing with 180 points to second-place Eastern Oregon’s 165. Thunderbirds junior sprinter Katherine Lucas accounted for two of the titles, setting a meet record in the 100-meter dash at 11.78 seconds and taking the 200 in 24.52, and was named the Women’s Track Athlete of the Meet.
In its best finish since 2016, EOU had the Field Athlete of the Meet in junior Paige Dodd, who set a heptathlon record at the CCC Multi-Event Championships with 4,826 points; placed third in both the long jump (18 feet 2 ¼ inches) and high jump (5-3 ¾); ran a leg in the Mountaineers’ 4x400-meter relay win; and added a fifth-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles (15.31).
UBC’s Laurier Primeau was voted the CCC Women’s Coach of the Year by his peers, and Northwest Christian received the inaugural Team Sportsmanship Award.
Below is a chronological recap of the Day 2 events:
POLE VAULT: SOU’s Joanna Galli, the top seed, took the pole vault title by winning a tiebreaker with EOU’s Payton Jolley, as Galli cleared 11-11 ¾ on her second attempt and Jolley did so on her third. The defending champion, OIT’s Nishi Chase, earned the final All-CCC spot by clearing 10-8.
DISCUS: C of I racked up 16 points in the discus, but EOU freshman Maggie Ledbetter won it with a best of 151-8 on her final throw. The Yotes slotted in second and third, with Catylynn Duff (142-3) and AaLea Kolb (134-7) leading the way.
TRIPLE JUMP: Junior Brittany Coleman made Warner Pacific’s lone title a memorable one, setting a new meet record on her second throw with a mark of 39-3 ¼ for the Knights’ first-ever triple jump win. UBC’s Allison Macdonald was second with an NAIA ‘B’ mark of 37-6 ¾ and EOU’s Victoria Branch (37-2 ½) was third.
JAVELIN: In an event the featured five of the top-seven throwers in the NAIA, No. 3 seed Alex Conley of OIT, a freshman, pulled off the upset win with a mark of 150-5 to become the eighth different Owl to take the title. The next three placers each cleared the NAIA ‘A’ standard, too: Northwest’s Anna Miller (140-5), UBC’s Giovanna Janes (139-7) and UBC’s J.V. Patry-Smith (133-2).
100 METERS: With a season-best of 11.78, UBC’s Katherine Lucas broke the CCC meet record by nine-hundredths of a second to edge out runner-up Arianna Daniel (11.94) of SOU, the defending champion. Daniel easily topped her personal best and hit the NAIA ‘A’ standard as one of four Raider placers, while Corban’s Mackenzie Wilson placed third in 12.23.
800 METERS: Though EOU claimed the last four scoring spots in the 800, UBC made its title move with the top-three placers: Nicola Symonds (2:09.97), Mikalya Tinkham (2:11.40) and Madelyn Huston (2:12.24). Symonds didn’t even need a PR to squash an 8-year-old meet record in a race that featured six national-qualifier entries.
400-METER HURDLES: The Thunderbirds got another victory in the 400 hurdles out of freshman Sienna Lalonde, who finished in 1:02.74. EOU had the next two placers in Katie Emerson (1:04.12) and Haley White (1:04.45), with White hitting the NAIA ‘B’ standard for the first time this season.
200 METERS: With three SOU runners on her tall, UBC’s Lucas got her second win of the day in the 200 with a time of 24.52. The Raiders took the next three spots as last year’s champion Arianna Daniel (24.75) hit the NAIA ‘A’ standard, Savannah Greenwade (25.34) repeated as an All-CCC performer and Loghan Sprauer finished in 25.84.
5,000 METERS: The No. 2 seed, UBC’s Enid Au, cruised in with a five-second 5K victory in 17:48.97. C of I’s Molly Vitale-Sullivan (17:53.86) was runner-up for the second year in a row and her freshman teammate, Larissa Mauer, took third in 18:30.94.
4x400-METER RELAY: With the team title already decided headed into the finale, top-seeded EOU won its first 4x400 title in four years as Megan Boals, Paige Dodd, Michelle Herbes and Elizabeth Herbes finished in 3:53.95. The next two finishers, UBC (3:54.15) and SOU (3:54.16), recorded NAIA ‘A’ standard times for the first time this season.