GRANVILLE, Ohio – Highlighted by a trio of conference titles and eight different All-NCAC performances, Denison women's track & field placed third overall at the 2021 North Coast Athletic Conference Women's Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Sunday afternoon in Granville. Earning their best finish since 2016, the Big Red collected a total team score of 124, which was 12.5 points ahead of DePauw in fourth place (111.50) and 48 points behind second-place Ohio Wesleyan (172). Allegheny captured the conference crown with 177 team points, their first NCAC team title since 2008.
The Big Red garnered six of their eight all-conference showings in the field events, including a pair of NCAC Championships from
Ashley Schmoll and
Kylee Silverman. Earning a clean sweep of the all-conference honors in the hammer throw, Silverman led DU in first place with a new school record launch of 155'11" (47.52 meters), besting her previous program-best distance of 155'10".
Leah Ackerman followed in second place with a new personal record of 153'4" (46.73 meters) and
Abby Reppert landed in third at 135'10" (41.41 meters). The second conference title of the day came in the javelin when Schmoll logged the third-best PR in school history to win the event with a throw of 111'7" (34.02 meters). Fellow junior
Marija Pavlick trailed by less than two feet in second place at 109'9" (33.46 meters). Schmoll also tallied an All-NCAC performance in the discus where she placed second overall with a toss of 118'4" (36.07 meters). Silverman followed in fourth place at 110'4" (33.64 meters).
Performing in the long and triple jump events,
Rainer Yaeger led the Big Red in both competitions, claiming a fourth-place showing in the triple jump at 33'1" (10.08 meters) while placing seventh overall in the long jump at 14'3.75" (4.36 meters). In the pole vault, sophomore
Danielle Wydick landed in sixth place with a vault of 10' (3.05 meters), while
Danni Gutelius also placed sixth overall in the high jump (4'9.50"). In the shot put,
Mikaila Carpenter led DU in sixth place at 34' (10.36 meters) and Schmoll followed at 32'9" (9.98 meters).
On the track, the Big Red earned two All-NCAC performances, including an NCAC title from freshman
Monica Bradford. Leading the pack in both the prelims and the finals of the 100-meter hurdles, Bradford set a new personal-best time during the finals when she placed first overall at 15.08. Schmoll finished fourth overall at 16.82.
Opening the meet with an all-conference showing, senior distance specialist
Sarah Radziewicz claimed her All-NCAC accolade in the 10,000-meter run when she placed third overall with the program's fifth-best PR of 38:53.43. Continuing in Denison's distance success, junior
Emily Willson placed fifth overall in the 3,000-meter steeple chase when she clocked in with the sixth-fastest personal record in school history at 12:03.40, a time that is 7.49 seconds faster than her previous PR. Willson and Radziewicz also competed in the 5,000-meter run with Willson leading the way in sixth place at 18:44.32 and Radziewicz trailing in ninth at 19:10.83.
In the 400-meter dash, sophomore
Erin Anderson placed fifth overall with a final time of 1:02.19. She then joined
Ava Batsel,
Tessa Gerhardt, and
Cara Bodary in the 4X400-meter relay to place fifth overall at 4:24.39. The trio of Anderson, Batsel, and Gerhardt also teamed up with Yaeger in the 4X100-meter relay to earn a sixth-place finish in 53.42.
This was Denison's sixth, top-three team performance of the 2021 outdoor season, a season that opened with a pair of team victories at the Wooster Tri-Meet on March 27 and then at the first Denison Quad Meet on April 2.
