Complete Results
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Westminster College women's indoor track & field team won the 2020 Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) Indoor Track & Field Championship on Thursday. Youngstown State University hosted the event.
Titan junior Megan Parker (Mercer, PA / Mercer Area) was named the Co-PAC Most Outstanding Field Performer, while first-year Emma Rudolph (Santa Clarita, CA / Golden Valley) earned the PAC Female Newcomer of the Year.
The Westminster women, who were behind Grove City going into the final event of the day, won its second-straight PAC Title after a clutch performance from the 4x400-meter relay team, consisting of (in order of the relay) sophomore Haley Moore (Greensburg, PA / Greensburg Central Catholic), senior Maura Belding (Columbiana, OH / Crestview), sophomore Morgan Gossard (Johnstown, PA / Richland), and junior Erin Ward (Euclid, OH / Lake Catholic). The foursome won with an impressive time of 4:09.78, just 0.42 seconds away from tying a school record and 0.64 seconds from tying a PAC record.
Overall, the Westminster women scored 110 points. The title marked Westminster's third official PAC Indoor championship in school history (2019, 2016) (the Titans won the league's unofficial championships in 2013 and 2014). Westminster 13th-year head coach Tim McNeil '96 was voted the league's Women's Indoor Track & Field Coach of the Year, his third.
The Titan women had five first-place finishes. The Westminster women pole vault swept the top-three spots, led by Rudolph who won with a personal-best mark of 12'2.75" (3.73m). Parker won both the shot put and the weight throw, the school's first champion for both events. Parker's distance in the shot broke her own school record with a toss of 40'4.25" (12.30m), while her first-place weight throw toss went 46'8.0" (14.22m). Ward won the 800-meter run for the third-straight year with a time of 2:21.09. Senior Katie Schrantz (New Castle, PA / Neshannock) became Westminster's first-ever 5,000-meter conference champion with a time of 18:33.81. Also for the Titan women, Gossard, who also cleared 12'2.75", but had more misses than Rudolph, placed second in the pole vault, while sophomore Abigail Westcott (Edinburg, PA / Mohawk Area) finished third (10'5.25"/ 3.18m). Moore added a second-place finish in the 400 with a personal-record time of 2:24.00.
The Titan men, won two events, finished with 82.5 points and only 2.0 points from second-place. Senior Tim Maxwell (Washington, PA / McGuffey) defended his title in the pole vault with a mark of 13'5.75" (4.11m). Sophomore Amon Sams (Chantilly, VA / John Champe) won the 60 with a time of 6.97. Sams broke his personal-best time in the preliminaries at 6.95. Sams also placed second in the 200 (22.22). Junior Dalton Anderson (Butler, PA / Moniteau) placed second in the high jump with a personal-record jump of 6'2.75" (1.90m). Anderson also finished third in the 60-hurdles (8.73). Freshman Ian Jackson (Neshannock, PA / Neshannock) added a third-place finish in the 5,000-meter run with a personal-best time of 16:30.09.
Belding for the women and senior Evan Vent (Pittsburgh, PA / South Fayette) for the men represented Westminster on the PAC Sportsmanship Team.
The Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships are scheduled for Friday-Saturday, March 6-7 at The Armory in Manhattan, New York City. The NCAA Division III Championships are slated for Friday-Saturday, March 13-14 and will be held at the JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, N.C. The final descending order lists will be posted by 9 a.m. (EST) on Sunday, March 8 on ncaa.com. The two-day event will be hosted by Guilford College.
