Devine Brown breaks women's discus record; team finds success at home meet
Women's track sent a handful of its athletes to Philadelphia to compete at the Penn Relays on Thursday and Friday before returning back home.
The rich competition in Pennsylvania saw an impressive performance by freshman Devine Brown, who had competed in it four times in her high school days. Brown earned a first place finish in the College Women’s Discuss Throw Championship on Friday with a final mark of 177-0. These numbers were good enough for her to set a CMU school record in the process.
Brown’s mark on Friday not only set an all-time school record, but, she now has the top women’s discuss mark in the Mid-American Conference and has placed in the top-20 of all throws in the country.
“It feels really good to set this record as well as having a new PR,” Brown said.
The freshman thrower finished in 10th place overall in the College Women’s shot put with a mark of 45-11.25.
“My warm-ups were good and I felt well prepared throughout the meet, especially going into the final round,” Brown said.
Upon returning home, the women’s track and field team had an impressive performance from a number of competitors at the Lyle Bennett Open on Friday and Saturday.
Senior Charnele Lyons lead the way for the team, earning three first place finishes for the Chippewas. She had a winning time of 4:34.34 in the women’s 1,500m. She also had a first place time of 2:15.27 in the 800m run and she contributed to CMU’s top finish in the 4x400 relays alongside senior Jackie McEnhill and sophomores Ravyn Baxter and Emma Fishnick respectively.
Lyon's freshman teammate Marseille McBeam came in first in the women’s high jump with a mark of 5-04.5. Finishing with the same mark in the high jump as junior Samantha Stein, who finished second due to a judges’ decisio
All in all, CMU produced nine Mid-American Conference qualifiers at its home track this weekend. Three of which are now nationally ranked in the top-48 in the Eastern Region. Devene Brown is now 16th and her sophomore teammate Kyla Walworth is ranked 36th. Senior Maddie Ribant is now ranked 35th in the region after her impressive performance in both the women’s steeplechase and the 5,000m.
Director of track and field, Willie Randolph was pleased with his team’s overall performance this past weekend.
“It was the first time we have been able to compete as an entire group," Randolph said. "It was exciting to see the team come together from one event to the next event.”
The Chippewas will now use this momentum to focus on next Saturday’s meet at rival Western Michigan's WMU Invitational.
