Ohio had five athletes earn points during the Mid-American Conference Championship, but a handful of other close calls dropped the team lower in the standings than it would have liked.
The Bobcats finished 11th out of 12 MAC teams in the conference championship. Meanwhile, Kent State won for the third consecutive year.
Athletes need to place in the top eight of any event to earn points for their team. The Bobcats frequently came up just short of that threshold.
“We had a lot of ninth-place finishes, which doesn’t get us any points on the board,” coach Clay Calkins said. “It’s not how we wanted to finish as a team.”
Ohio found points in two track events on Friday.
Senior Brittany Tyree earned the Bobcats four points for her fifth-place in the heptathlon. Freshman Chanda Cuckler just missed earning points by placing ninth.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better way to finish my last heptathlon, and having personal-best records in my individual events felt like all the work that I have been doing throughout the past three years has paid off,” Tyree said. “Definitely an experience I will not forget.”
Junior Ashley Waddington also gained team points for her sixth-place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase.
Cuckler finished fifth in the high jump with a leap of 1.67 meters, missing her personal best by .01 meters.
Senior Hope McCarty and sophomore Emily Pifer both finished eighth in their respective races, earning the Bobcats some points on the board.
Pifer ran a time of 17 minutes, 21.96 seconds in the 5,000-meter run, which Calkins noted was tough considering she also ran fourth in the 10,000-meter run on Thursday.
Some lost chances but close calls came on Friday and Saturday. Freshman Donyelle Brown took ninth in hammer throw and 10th in the shot put. McCarty took ninth in the javelin, missing eighth place by about one meter. Sophomore Melissa Thompson placed fourth in the preliminaries for the 15,000-meter run but took 12th in the finals.
Ohio’s two relay teams also finished in the top 10. The 4-by-400-meter quartet of Kiley Mathews, McCarty, Tyree and Danielle Winningham finished ninth and the 4-by-100-meter team of Mathews, Alexis Geiger, Kaylah Howard and Winningham was 10th.
“Eleventh place is not acceptable, and we can only go up from here,” Calkins said. “We’ve done a lot better than that in the past, and the expectations are that we will improve.”
Ohio has won the MAC Championship three times, but none since 1994. The team placed ninth in back-to-back seasons in 2010 and 2011. The Bobcats finished fifth in 2009.
Pifer has locked in her spot for the 10,000-meter race at the NCAA East Regional in Jacksonville, Fla. in two weekends.
“I was a little nervous because you can always get passed in the ranks, but it looks like I qualified to head down there and give it one more go at the 10k for the season,” Pifer said.
Before the NCAA East Regional, the Bobcats host one more meet at home, where some of the discus throw and distance athletes will compete.
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