Men's finish sixth, women eighth in MAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships
The Central Michigan track and field teams traveled to the University of Akron for the 2013 Mid-American Conference Outdoor Championship last weekend, where the men and women finished sixth and eighth, respectively.
Events took place Thursday through Saturday evening, and it saw CMU produce a number of quality performances in both the men’s and women’s competitions.
Junior Parker Scott emerged as CMU’s only MAC champion after finishing first in the men’s 400-meter hurdles with a time of 51.77, beating his previous personal best of 52.17. This came after he had been trailing two opponents for a majority of the race before pulling ahead into first on the straightaway.
“I didn’t think I was going to win right at the end,” Scott said. "I could see two guys ahead of me, but I wasn’t going to quit.”
Scott said he was able to maintain his composure throughout the weekend.
“A lot of people want to place well because it’s the last meet of the season,” Scott said. “Now that I’m not a freshman or sophomore anymore, it feels like a much bigger meet to me now.”
Although Scott’s numbers were impressive, he was not the only one over the weekend to give CMU a strong performance.
Senior Renaldo Powell finished in second place in the men’s 110-meter hurdles en route to a career-best time of 14.06.
Powell, along with junior Clay Holman, sophomore Curtis Mitchell and freshman Dee Smith, made up the men’s 4x100 relay team. They finished fourth in the race with a season-best time of 41.10.
“We had our ups and downs, but it was good see everybody out there cheering for and supporting each other,” said Scott.
The CMU women put up a number of impressive performances over the weekend, as well.
Senior Maddie Ribant had a time of 17:03.63 and finished in seventh place in the women’s 5,000-meter race, her final MAC championship competition. Sophomore Bridget Doughty earned a fifth place finish with a time of 1:00.72 in the 400-meter hurdles, and junior Samantha Stein achieved a mark of 5-05 in the high jump competition.
CMU produced one first-place finish, along with two second-place finishes and five third-place finishes at the meet.
