Amelia Maher certainly made her final Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championship appearance a memorable one. The University of Minnesota Duluth senior finished as that event's leading point producer Saturday in Sioux Falls, S.D., and she and her Bulldog teammates wound up placing fourth among 14 league schools.
Maher locked up the women's high jump title (5'-05.75") on Friday morning before going on to place second in the 400-meter hurdles (1:02.04) the following day. Maher, who finished as the runnerup in the league's outdoor heptathlon competition last week (4,893 points), wrapped up the weekend by helping the 4 x 100 relay team take fifth and the 4 x 400 unit claim seventh. That gave the Sauke Center, Minn., product -- and recently-minted UMD Top Female Scholar-Athlete for 2014-15 -- a personal harvest of 27.5 points.
UMD as a whole generated 87 points to trail four-time defending champion University of Mary (162 pts.), Augustana College (109 pts.) and Winona State University (97 pts.) in the final team standings. The Bulldogs were followed by Minnesota State University-Mankato (73 pts.), Minnesota State University-Moorhead (72 pts.) and Wayne State College (63 pts.)
Besides Maher, UMD produced one other individual champion in freshman
Emilee Trost, whose NCAA Division II provisional-qualifying time of 4:27.39 took a backseat to no one in Saturday's 1,500-meter run finals. The Bulldogs also received second-place performances from senior
Jennifer Hitchcock in the hammer throw (184'-02', a NCAA Division II qualifying mark) and junior
Hannah Olson in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (10:39.04). Olson teammates, senior
Alexandra Rudin (10:40.89) and sophomore
Breanna Colbenson (10:43.25), placed 3-4 in that event and like Olson did so in NCAA II provisional-qualifying fashion. Other UMD point-getters from the weekend included Trost in the 800-meter run (3rd; 2:15.31) , Colbenson in the 5,000-meter run (6th; 17:41.74), freshman
McKenzie Holt in the 10,000-meter run (6th; 37:00.38), Rudin in the 5,000-meter run (7th; 17:45.81), junior
Madeline Schaeffer in the 400-meter hurdles (7th; 1:03.76) and 100-meter hurdles (8th; 14.65) and Olson in the 800-meter run (8th; 2:20.46).
Schaeffer, freshman
Erica Kesseh and senior
Erin Pangerl joined Maher on both the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relay outfits.
"A good coach will make her players see what they can be, rather than what they are," said UMD head coach
Joanna Warmington. "Today, my team prevailed and over performed. For missing some top point scorers from last year, I truly admired the effort our team put forth this weekend. We had 15+ personal records and lifetime bests. Overall, it was a great meet."
The top three finishers in each event and the top two relay teams received All-NSIC recognition.
2015 NSIC Outdoor Track and Field Results
