UB's "golden girl" Faith Thompson smashed her own record en route to a dominating individual Mid-American Conference Championship in Mount Pleasant, Mich. this weekend.
Thompson's success was the high point of a surprisingly successful weekend for UB's men's and women's track and field teams.
The UB women started incredibly strong, ending the first day of competition in second place. The Bulls fell a few places after the first day's astonishing start to a very solid eighth place with a total of 43.50 points. Akron won the overall women's title with 97 points with Eastern Michigan finishing second, only 3.5 points behind.
On the men's side, the UB men finished sixth with 24 points, a scant half point behind fifth place Ohio. The overall victory went easily to host team Central Michigan with 214 points.
Thompson led the Bulls at the MACs as the unstoppable favorite in the weight throw and backed up her reputation, winning the event by more than four feet over second place finisher Kristi Ford of Western Michigan.
Her throw of 64-8 1/2 (19.27m) claimed not only the MAC Championship title but also broke the previous league meet mark of 63 1/4. Furthermore Thompson exceeded her own school record by more than a foot, adding to her NCAA provisional qualifying distance.
"I never take a win for granted during a competition. It only takes one throw, from anyone, and I had to stay focused all of the way through," said Thompson.
"I was relieved that it was over and that it finally had happened."
Bulls' distance runner Jenny Koeppel had a solid meet as well, finishing third in both the 5,000- and 3,000-meter runs. The senior distance specialist posted solid times of 17:17:50 in the 5,000 and 9:47:55 in the 3,000.
Bulls' women's distance medley relay team of Jen Jezorski, Vashone Wallace, Kate Kohout, and Kelli O'Brien also ran well, finishing third with a time of 11:54.87.
UB's multi-event athletes Patrice Coney and Todd Joki also claimed top three performances.
Coney, a sophomore, finishing second place in the 800-meter and third place in the 60-meter hurdles led to an overall third place finish in the women's pentathlon, setting a new UB school record with 3,595 points, topping the previous record by over 100 points.
Joki finished strong and claimed third place in the men's heptathalon. Joki showed a strong performance winning the 60-meter dash event of the heptathlon in 7.18 seconds.
The women's 4-by-400-meter relay team took sixth place and posted a new season-best of 3:49.25
The team of Celestine Coney, Patrice Coney, Stacy Downer and Vashone Wallace bettered their ECAC qualifying time by more than four seconds.
The Bulls' strong performance built momentum the team hopes to ride into next weekend's ECAC/IC4A Championships in Boston, Mass.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
