Freshman Anna Roessner is currently ranked first in the G-MAC for the 60m.
Courtesy | Ashley Van Hoose

Several track and field athletes broke personal bests across the board at the Silverston Invitational hosted by the University of Michigan Feb. 20 and at the Tune-Up Meet hosted by Hillsdale College Feb. 21. 

Freshman Anna Roessner placed second in the 200-meter at the Silverston Invite with a time of 24.24 and set a new personal best, ranking her third in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference. She also took fifth in the 60-meter with a time of 7.49. 

Roessner also ranks first in the 60m in the G-MAC with her time of 7.36 at the Grand Valley State University Holiday Open, and she said she hopes to take first in the 60m at the G-MAC Indoor Championships Feb. 27-28. She also said because the team has started to taper, race times have started to decrease.

“The last few weeks leading up to championships have been a little bit more mellow, and that’s why we started seeing people dropping so much time,” Roessner said. “Hopefully that continues on to G-MACs because girls have a chance to win. If everyone places where they should and some people do a little bit better than they’re supposed to, we have a good shot.”

Senior Lucy Minning came in sixth in the 60m with a time of 7.64, followed by senior Anna Lamoreaux, who placed fourth in 7.95. 

Freshman Watson Magwenzi placed seventh in the 200m with a time of 22.09, marking a new personal best. Magwenzi ran the 60m dash in 6.96 and took ninth. 

At the Tune-Up Meet, women’s track and field took first place in 10 events and men took first in four events. Junior Savannah Fraley won the 3K with a time of 10:29.39, senior Francesca Federici took first in the 60m with a time of 7.82, and junior Megan Roberts won the 800-meter in 2:20.19.

On track, freshman Jefferson Regitz took first in the 3K with a time of 8:49.26, followed by junior Noah Gazmin in second at 8:58.81, and sophomore Zach Self in third at 9:00.76. All three set new PRs in the 3K.

“Performance wise, I’m pretty happy with it,” Regitz said. “I probably won’t get into the fastest heat at conference but I definitely put in a good effort and I’m happy with how I performed. I went through the mile in exactly what I wanted to: 4:38 was a 1600 split. I just fell off a little bit from that. I think part of that was because I was running solo up front.”

Freshman Wyatt Widolff placed second in the 200m in 22.53 and came in fourth in the 60m with a time of 7.03, setting personal bests in both.

In high jump, sophomore Natalie Spielman and junior Elaine Kutas set personal bests with a clearance of 1.53 meters, which is equal to 5 feet and half an inch.

“Clearing 5 feet in high jump is a pretty big milestone in opening up more ability,” Spielman said. “It’s really awesome to see because now our entire high jump squad is over 5 feet.”

Spielman said women’s track and field has prepared well for championships. 

“Our team across the board is looking really strong,” Spielman said. “This past week we didn’t see any super crazy marks, but we saw a lot of really high averages. Between the six throws taken over the day, Amelia Lutz had a higher average at this meet in shot put than she’s ever had before.”

Junior Amelia Lutz won shot put with a throw of 15.78. Junior Olivia Newsome won weight throw with a mark of 18.23 meters, followed by sophomore Tori Tyo in second with a mark of 18.15 meters.

In men’s weight throw, senior Ben Haas won with a season-best mark of 22.31 meters and took second in shot put with a throw of 16.5 meters. Sophomore Yahli Salzman placed third in shot put with a new personal best mark of 15.47 meters.

Senior Tara Townsend placed second in pole vault with a clearance of 3.72 meters, and freshman Sophia Williams placed fifth with a new collegiate best clearance of 3.42 meters. Williams said she hasn’t been jumping as high as she did in high school and wanted to relax so she could improve her performance.

“I tried to take the pressure off myself mentally because the week before I realized that I was putting too much pressure on myself to do well,” Williams said. “I was like, ‘It’s okay, I’m just going to remember how fun it is to be in the air, to go over bars, and still how much fun it is to not go over bars if I don’t.’”

The Chargers will compete in the G-MAC Indoor Championships hosted by Ashland University Feb. 27-28.