Posted: Mar 03, 2024
Brookings, S.D. - The Central Methodist Women's Track and Field program made plenty of history at the NAIA Indoor National Championships this past weekend in Brookings, South Dakota.
The Eagles garnered seven NAIA All-Americans, including a pair of national runner-up finishes and a third place standing. This lifted the women to fifth place as a team with 32.5 points, the highest finish among any CMU team in program history.
On day one, the Eagles earned a pair of All-America finishes in the pentathlon. Junior Renee Finke finished second in the five-event test of endurance, totaling a school record 3701 points, only 16 points shy of an NAIA gold medal.
Fellow junior Haley Bellamy placed seventh in the pentathlon with a respectable 3440 points. The Eagles held a first place standing in the team results after day one with 10 points.
The women's honors continued to mount on day two when junior Baleigh Morris placed fifth in the 3,000m racewalk, earning All-America honors for the second consecutive year. She finished the race in a time of 15:19.93.
In the throws, senior Karli Wolfe earned a seventh place standing in the weight throw to nab All-America honors for the first time in her career. The Linn Creek, Missouri native threw a new personal best and set a school record of 17.37 meters to land on the podium. Central tallied six more team points to move to second place in the team race.
The final day of competition Saturday saw three more Eagles earn All-America status including two top-three finishes. In the high jump, senior Delaney Miller cleared her first four heights of the event. She finished with a new personal best and tying the school record with a height of 1.74 meters to earn a National Runner-Up finish.
Finke became a two-time All-American over the weekend with a sixth place finish in the High Jump, finishing with a mark of 1.71 meters.
Dayana Montenegro shaved two-seconds off of her personal best in the finals of the 600m run, posting a new school record time of 1:30.62 placing third and earning All-America honors.
Senior Kailey Johnson competed in the prelims of the 60m hurdles, running the event in a time of 9.07 seconds. Fellow teammate Parys Smith was right behind, finishing in 9.08 seconds.
Na'Zariah James hit a mark of 5.28 meters in the long jump, and just missed out on All-America status in the triple jump. The freshman hit a new personal best and school record of 11.81 meters to finish ninth.
Janiyah Brown finished 15th in the triple jump with a mark of 11.50 meters.
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