CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – Illinois women's track and field concluded the 2018 indoor regular season with events titles from Miranda Marry in the 600m and Tarynn Mays in the triple jump on Saturday at the Orange and Blue Open. The regular season finale comes a week ahead of Big Ten Championships on February 23-24. Full results here.
"A meet like this is tricky because we don't have everybody out competing due to resting a lot of people," head coach Mike Turk said following the meet. "We have people that want to put up performances and others that want to polish some things up before next week. It's always iffy when you have just part of a team out here, you miss part of that team dynamic. I thought we did pretty well. I was very pleased with the pole vault, LaRocca and Cooper [Jazo] were outstanding, the women vaulted well, our guys in the weight throw were really good and we had some good performances on the track. We got everything done that we wanted to, we didn't get anybody hurt, and we got some improved performances. I think we're ready to go for next week."
Miranda Marry posted Illinois' top track finish of the afternoon, as the Illini senior won the 600m dash. Marry timed 1:38.46 in the three trips around the track to beat out Faith Reynolds of Missouri Baptist.
Joining Marry in winning an event was freshman Tarynn Mays who won the triple jump competition with her third jump of the day. Mays marked 36'6.75" (11.14m) on her third jump of the series, a distance that was 10 inches further than runner-up Amelia Peterson of Western Illinois.
In the 60m hurdles, freshman Alexis Jones head her best day in the event this season, tying her lifetime best, 8.91, in prelims and then shredding two tenths off that time in the final. Placing second overall, the Georgia hurdle champion timed 8.72 in the final. Classmate Maya Seay took third with a time of 8.74.
The other short sprint event on Saturday saw junior Emone' Davis place fourth in the 60m dash, tying her personal record of 7.73l. Davis advanced to the final earlier in the afternoon with a time of 7.76 in prelims.
In the final track event of the afternoon, the Illini saw a pair of true freshman clock new personal records in the 3,000m race. Nicki Cast took fourth place with a time of 10:18.54, while Katie Stapleton timed 10:25.01 in sixth place.
In field events, four Illini set season-best performances, two in the long jump and two more in the pole vault. In the long jump, freshman Wynda Wormack placed third with a leap of 16'7.75" (5.07m), while junior Benda Kendziera used her fifth attempt to mark 16'1" (4.90m). The Illini added two more seasonal bests in the vault when freshman Kristin Slaughter and junior Carolyn Nye both cleared 11'4.5" (3.47m) on their first attempt.
Up next, the Fighting Illini begin postseason competition next weekend with Big Ten Indoor Championships February 23-24 at the Spire Institute in Geneva, Ohio. Competition will be streamed on BTN Plus throughout the meet. NCAA Indoor Championships will be held two weeks later, March 9-10, in College Station, Texas.
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