Denison junior Aedin Brennan captured her sixth-consecutive NCAC Combined Events Championship title after compiling 4,850 points over the course of two days at Oberlin. In addition to Brennan's third-straight heptathlon crown, freshman Jessica Nix also placed sixth in the event with 2,926 points.
Brennan won four of the seven events that make up the heptathlon and finished runner-up in the other three. The junior opened day one with back-to-back second-place performances in the 100 hurdles and high jump. In the hurdles, Brennan ran a time of 15.36 which was two hundredths of a second shy of her personal record in the event. She also turned in a mark of 5'0.25" in the high jump.
The four-time All-American closed out Saturday's event with victories in both the shot put and 200-meter dash. Brennan bested the six-athlete field by a full meter in the shot put, finishing with a mark of 36'0.75". She went on to PR in the 200 dash, shaving 38 hundredths of a second off her previous time. Brennan wont the race with a time of 25.73, 35 hundredths of a second ahead of second-place Emily Brown of Ohio Wesleyan. With those victories, Brennan carried a 52-point lead over Wooster's Hilary Coady into Sunday's events.
Brennan continued to pile up the wins on Sunday thanks to a victory in the long jump. Her leap of 18'2.5" topped the second-place performance by almost a foot. Brennan's final win came in the sixth event, the javelin. Her best toss of the day went 103'2". Brennan made it a clean sweep on Sunday, but Coady was able to edge Brennan by six thousandths of a second at the line.
Nix (pictured left) turned in her best finish of the day in the high jump where she took fourth after successfully clearing 4'6.25" on just her second attempt at the height. Her highest point total came in event #1, the 100 hurdles. The freshman placed fifth in the event with a PR time of 17.25, which earned her 569 points. Nix also shaved 15 hundredths of a second off her previous bench mark in the event.
Brennan earned 10 points towards the Big Red's score at next weekend's NCAC Outdoor Championship with her victory. Coady placed second with 4,442 points. The Ohio Wesleyan trio of Alexa Katrinchak (3,699), Meaghan Teitelman (3,405) and Emily Brown (3,331) occupied spots three, four and five in the standings, while Nix took sixth with 2,926 points.
Denison will enter next weekend's championship meet in second place with 13 points, while the Bishops will have 15 points going into Friday's events. Coady earned Wooster eight points for her runner-up performance. The two-day championship event held at Ohio Wesleyan will begin on Friday at 12 p.m.
