Missouri State University’s women’s track and field team achieved several top-10 program marks during the Conference USA Indoor Championships in Lynchburg, Virginia. The Bears finished 10th out of 12 teams, collecting 27.6 points. Kennesaw State won the team title with 140.5 points, followed by Liberty with 126.5 points and FIU with 81.6 points.
Olivia Rogers led Missouri State in the sprints, qualifying sixth in the preliminaries of the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.46 seconds and then finishing third in the final at 7.44 seconds—a personal best that ranks her fourth all-time at Missouri State. Delaney Weimer posted a season-best time of 7.54 seconds in the same event’s prelims, while Kayleigh Jenkins set a personal record at 7.56 seconds.
In hurdles, Cheria Galbreath ran a personal-best 8.88 seconds in the preliminaries of the 60-meter hurdles, tying for tenth all-time at Missouri State.
Rogers also competed in the 200-meter dash, placing eleventh with a time of 24.44 seconds. Claire Farrell advanced to the final of the 400-meter dash after running a preliminary time of 55.35 seconds and then recorded a personal-best of 55.19 seconds to finish fifth overall—ninth fastest in school history.
Abby Meyer moved to eighth all-time at Missouri State after clocking a personal-best of 2:12.85 in the preliminaries of the 800-meter run, while Faith Fotiades also achieved a personal best with her time of 2:16.22.
Ella Cronhardt continued her strong season by running a personal-best mile in the finals at 4:50.52, which places her second on Missouri State’s all-time list.
The Bears’ distance runners set multiple personal records in both the 3,000-meter and 5,000-meter runs; Elsa Henry led three teammates under their previous bests in the former event, while Madilyn Moore ran a career-best to pace four Bears who finished between thirteenth and twenty-first place overall in the latter.
Missouri State’s relay teams made significant progress as well—the Distance Medley Relay squad (Mary Margaret Harris, Claire Farrell, BreAna Garrett, Ella Cronhardt) placed third with an eleventh-fastest mark ever for Missouri State at this event (11:45.03), while Farrington, Foster, Farrell and Garrett took fourth place in the meet-ending 4×400-meter relay with another top-10 program mark (3:43.72).
In field events, Shiloh Cross jumped to sixth place and ninth all-time for Missouri State with her triple jump effort (12.35 meters). In high jump competition both Jenkins and Maggie Haase cleared heights of 1.61 meters; Mirabella Redman led long jumpers for Missouri State at just over five meters.
Bessie Swoboda and Sadie McCulloh each set new personal records during their pentathlon competitions to close out what head coach Jordan Fife described as an encouraging showing for his team:
“It was a great first experience in CUSA. The level of competition brought out the best in our athletes,” Fife said. “Our group brought such good energy and effort all weekend. We’re looking forward to improving our performances at the outdoor championship.”
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