Championship Central | Results | Photos
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – It came down to the final event of the day, as the Houston women won the 4x400-meter relay race to move ahead of Cincinnati and capture their first American Athletic Conference Indoor Track and Field title with 98 points at the Birmingham CrossPlex on Saturday. With the Houston men winning their fifth-straight title, it marked the second time the Cougars have swept the track and field championships after they both claimed the 2018 outdoor team titles in Cincinnati.
Houston’s first indoor title came after finishing fifth in 2018. The Cougars now own a trio of top-three indoor finishes, taking third place in 2017 and 2014. The women’s meet was a competitive battle with the standings constantly changing. Cincinnati finished as The American’s runner-up for the third time after placing second in 2017 and 2016. The Bearcats recorded 94.5 points and won three individual field titles. Wichita State collected 84 points and placed third.
Four more women’s records fell on Saturday, as the total meet marks registered in 2019 grew to nine. Four returning women who won a title in 2018 successfully defended their top spot on the podium.
Wichita State’s Rebekah Topham earned the most points (22.5) in the meet to claim The American’s 2019 Most Valuable Indoor Performance award. Topham won the mile and 3,000-meter run, while also running the anchor leg of Wichita State’s first-place distance medley relay team. Cincinnati’s Caisja Chandler recorded the most points as a freshman (11.5) to earn the conference’s Indoor Freshman of the Year honor. She collected 11 points after placing second in the 200 meter dash and sixth in the 60-meter dash. Houston earned the league’s Staff of the Year honors for winning the championship.
The CrossPlex was filled with excitement for the final event of the day, as Houston’s relay team of Payge Side, Birexus Hawkins, Jazmyn Tilford-Rutherford and Brianne Bethel registered a conference-record time of 3:37.82 to capture the event title for the first time. Bethel and UConn senior Kat Surin ran a close race in the anchor leg of the third heat with Bethel moving ahead on the final lap and crossing the finish line first. The Huskies placed second with a time of 3:38.15, while ECU finished third place after winning the second heat in 3:40.79.
After big performances in Friday’s distance events, Topham—the 2017 MVC mile champion—returned to the track Saturday and won The American’s mile and 3,000m titles. First she claimed the mile with a time of 4:49.60. UConn and ECU each placed two runners in the top eight. Mia Nahom of UConn finished second place (4:50.96) for a second-straight year, while Temple’s Helene Holm Gottlieb earned her first podium finish after clocking 4:51.48 to place third.
In the second-to-last event of the day, Topham ran 4:53 in her final mile, pacing ahead of 2018 3,000m champion Hannah Miller of SMU on the straightaway to become the first Shocker to win the event, clocking 9:32.45. Miller, who entered the race with the top 3,000m mark in The American this year, finished second with her time of 9:33.07. After winning the 5,000-meter run on Friday, Wichita State’s Winny Koskei earned her fourth American track and field top-three finish, taking third place with her time of 9:39.84. SMU senior Svenja Ojstersek captured fourth (9:44.40) to place two Mustangs in the top five.
Cincinnati senior Lauretta Blaut won her third-straight conference indoor high jump title after clearing 1.82 meters on her second attempt. Blaut, the league’s record-holder in the high jump, became the second Bearcat to win three-straight high jump titles, as former Cincinnati athlete Erika Hurd won the first-three American high jump titles.
SMU sophomore Cassie Ackemann hit a big personal high-jump record, clearing 1.76 meters on her first attempt to finish as this year’s runner-up. She was the runner-up at the 2018 American outdoor championships and finished third place in last year’s indoor meet. Memphis senior Saida Burns-Moore and Wichita State freshman Sidney Sapp tied for the third-place spot after each of them cleared 1.73 meters on their second attempts. Only eight athletes out of the field of 24 cleared the opening height of 1.65 meters.
Cincinnati junior Irati Mitxelena earned her second-straight triple jump title in record fashion. The jumper reached 13.16 meters for the furthest distance in conference history, bettering former Bearcat Rebecka Abrahamsson’s mark from 2016. UCF received big points with Daneesha Davidson jumping 12.47 meters on her opening attempt to take home the silver medal. Burns-Moore stepped back up to the podium after finishing top three in the high jump earlier in the day. The senior jumped 12.73 meters for third place in the triple jump.
Another meet record fell in the field at the hands of UConn’s Divine Oladipo. The thrower recorded a shot put toss of 16.56 meters on her final attempt to set the record, after securing her second shot put title in two years on her fourth throw that traveled 16.04 meters. The event had only been won previously by either SMU or Cincinnati, as Oladipo became the first Husky to take home the conference’s indoor shot put title. Oladipo ranks No. 1 on The American’s all-time performance list with her toss of 16.88 meters recorded on Feb. 2.
Cincinnati, Memphis and Wichita State each had multiple throwers in the top eight of the shot put. Freshman Malin Smith of Cincinnati recorded a personal-record distance of 15.95 meters to take second place, while Wichita State’s Kelsey Slawson placed third with her top throw traveling 15.68 meters.
SMU’s Chelsea Francis ran ahead of Houston’s Bethel, the league’s 2018 60m dash winner, to win her first 60m title in 7.27 seconds. Francis, the 2018 runner-up, owns the top two times in The American after setting the record in Friday’s prelims (7.26 seconds) and coming within 0.01 seconds of that mark on Saturday. Bethel finished in second place (7.30 seconds). UCF saw four Knights in the 60m dash final to combine for 13 points. Junior Shian Hyde led UCF with a third-place finish in 7.42 seconds.
Then in the 200-meter dash, Bethel ran a conference indoor record time of 23.12 seconds on the way to winning the second 200m title in five years for Houston. Cincinnati ‘s Chandler took second place with her time of 23.52 seconds. UCF had another strong presence in the 200m with Hyde earning a second-consecutive third-place finish to lead two other Knights in the final. Francis, who entered the meet ranked No. 2 in The American in this event, placed fourth.
Houston sophomore Naomi Taylor owns the top-two 60-meter hurdle times in conference history after setting the meet record in Friday’s prelims (8.08 seconds) and running for the next-best time on Saturday to capture gold (8.21 seconds). Taylor improved from her second-place finish in last year’s conference indoor championships. The 2018 60m hurdles winner, Brandi Hughes of Tulane, placed second (8.43 seconds), while this year’s pentathlon champion, Angelica Lightfoot of Cincinnati, earned a second 2019 podium finish, taking third in 8.46 seconds.
UConn senior Kat Surin has been a podium finisher in the 400-meter in each of the past three years. This year, Surin won her first gold medal in the event, placing first with her time of 53.97 seconds, pushing ahead of Houston’s Hawkins, the 2018 outdoor 400-meter hurdles champion, on the final stretch. Freshman Chika Iwuamadi of SMU took the third podium spot with her time of 54.28 seconds.
Another Husky placed first in a track event, as senior Susan Aneno repeated in the 800-meter run. Aneno entered the weekend coming off an impressive run from the 2018 American indoor championships in which she defeated two-time 800m champion Rosie Chamberlain of UCF. She is also one of five athletes in the country running below 2.04 this year. Aneno ran ahead of the pack in 2:06.54 to take home this year’s title. Temple’s Gottlieb collected a second podium finish as the 800m runner-up (2:08.39), while Tulsa’s Sabrina Monsees ran 2:09.09 to finish third, moving up one spot from last year’s title race. Cincinnati claimed the next two spots with Rylee Penn and Sammy Hentz brining in points for the Bearcats.
Women’s Teams Scores
1) Houston - 98
2) Cincinnati 94.5
3) Wichita State 84
4) SMU 78
5) UConn - 59
6) UCF - 54
7) ECU - 43
8) Memphis - 36.5
9) Tulane - 35
10) Temple - 31.5
11) Tulsa - 24
12) USF - 23.5
WOMEN’S MOST VALUABLE INDOOR PERFORMANCE
Rebekah Topham, R-Jr., Wichita State
WOMEN’S FRESHMAN OF THE YEAR
Caisja Chandler, Fr., Cincinnati
WOMEN’S INDOOR STAFF OF THE YEAR
Houston
All-Conference performers are top-three finishers in each event.