By Emma Sporleder
Student Reporter
The Lady Rangers track and field team had a historic day last Friday in Wichita, Kansas when Northwestern Oklahoma State University’s women’s track and field team placed third.
This was their first time as a member of the NCAA, and it was the first event by a women’s track and field program from Northwestern in more than 30 years.
Northwestern competed in the Wichita State Invitational Friday afternoon at the Heskett Center on the Wichita State University’s campus located in Wichita, Kansas.
Keiazyiah Young, a freshman from Del City, Oklahoma showed up to compete for the Lady Rangers when she placed fourth in the triple jump with a mark of 10.45.
Young also competed on the track with a time of 8.16 in the 60 meter which won her section going away.
Keiazyiah Young, Megan Mayfield, Alexa Leyva and Cayla Smither were on a team to compete in the 4×400 meter relay and finished with a time of 4:24.34, which earned the relay team a second place finish.
The 4×800 meter relay team consisting on Ladasheray Bell, Claire Theis, Journey LeBeau and Kayla Gourley finished in third place.
Cayla Smither has a top 10 finish in the 60-meter dash, and Alexa Leyva competed in the field events she finished the long jump with a top ten spot.
Gina Wilson, Theis and Leyva all did work in the 60-meter hurdles.
Kayla Gourley set a personal record at the invitational in the 1-mile, her record was 5:52.62.
The freshman from Duncan, Oklahoma Rosaria Milton beat her indoor personal record in the shot put which helped her finish ninth.
The Lady Rangers will look forward to competing this weekend in Norman, Oklahoma at the UCO Broncho Invitational put on by the University of Central Oklahoma at the University of Oklahoma’s Indoor Track Facility.
Northwestern Oklahoma State University’s women’s track and field team had another successful weekend in Norman, Oklahoma when the Lady Rangers competed at the UCO Alumni Classic.
The meet was held as the Oklahoma-Mosier Indoor track in Norman on Feb. 9.
Northwestern’s athletes showed up to succeed when the Rangers grabbed three top-three finishes.
This included a third-place finish in the penthalon from Gina Wilson, a freshman from Perry, Oklahoma.
This was Wilson’s first time competing in this event in her collegiate career and she had 2420 points and third place in the high jump (1.47 meters) and the long jump (4.31 meters).
Claire Theis, a junior from Kingman, Kansas, finished close behind Gina Wilson in the pentathlon for fifth place.
Keiazyiah Young set her best mark in the triple jump with 10.71, which slid her into the third-place finish in the finals.
Megan Mayfield, Keiazyiah Young, Journey LeBeau and Ledasheray Bell competed in the 4×400 relay.
The team has improved since their last time at the meet in Wichita.
The 4×400 relay team finish with a time of 4:19.73 to earn fourth place.
Cayla Smither placed fifth after jumping 10.39 meters in the triple jump, and Lashayla Green places third in the high jump when she leapt 1.4 meters.
Rayna Patton and Jenny Martinez were the top throwers in their flight when they finished back to back with distances of 10.43 and 10.40 meters in shot put.
This was both of the Lady Rangers personal bests.
Kayla Gourley, a senior from Wichita, Kansas, recorded another personal best in the 3000-meter race with a time of 11:51.98.
Bell and LeBeau finished second in their sections of the 400-meter event, and Young and Green finished second in their sections of the 200-meter dash.
The Lady Rangers will compete again in two weeks at the same facility in the Great American Conference Indoor championship.