By: Bill Morgal, sports information director
Gallery: (5-14-2023) 2023 PSAC Women's Outdoor T&F (Day 3)
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. -- The Shippensburg University women's outdoor track & field team completed three days of competition on Saturday with a second-place team finish at the 2023 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Outdoor Track & Field Championships, totaling 115 points in action at Slippery Rock University's William Lennox Track and Mihalik-Thompson Stadium.
Shippensburg scored in 13 of the 21 contested events, totaling 16 individual place-winning performances. SU won six events, including both relays on Saturday with championships meet-record performances.
It takes a host of contributors to come away with a team trophy, and this weekend was no different for Shippensburg. However, there were several standouts who were essential to the second-place finish.
Sasha Lee was a double winner on Saturday as well, winning both the 100-meter hurdles and the triple jump. On Friday,
Sara McKean won the long jump and
Nicola Puggé; won the heptathlon.
Lee was sensational, first claiming the 100-meter hurdle title Saturday by leading wire-to-wire and crossing the finish line in 14.07 seconds – a huge personal best that ranks among the Top 30 nationally. It marks Lee's first conference title in the event after placing fourth last season.
Later in the day, Lee won the triple jump on her sixth and final attempt. She had been in fifth place entering her final attempt before traveling 38 feet, 9 ¾ inches – an improvement of nearly a full foot – to jump all the way to the top of the awards stand.
Performances like this are among those that make the difference in team standings, and it gave the Raiders an extra six points that were necessary to get past third-place Millersville (113 points). It marks Lee's second straight All-PSAC finish in the triple jump after a second-place finish last season.
SU bookended its day on the track with relay victories, beginning with the 4x100-meter relay making history for the second straight day.
Aliyah Serrano, McKean,
Kayla Dalhouse and
Leah Graybill ran 46.33 seconds – enhancing the quartet's conference record by another hundredth of a second from its prelim time – to claim the league title.
Saturday's conclusion was equally exciting, as
Alyssa Wert, Serrano, Graybill and
Caroline Mastria ran a meet-record of 3:47.14 to stave off a 51-second anchor leg split from Championships Most Valuable Athlete Divonne Franklin of California to claim the title. SU entered the final event in third place, two points behind Millersville, and was able to leapfrog the Marauders by virtue of its win and a fourth-place finish by the Black and Gold.
Graybill finished third in the open 100 meters and second in the open 200 meters, contributing to 34 team points when including the relays. Fellow sprinter Serrano finished fourth in the 100 meters and fifth in the 200 meters, contributing to 29 team points when including the relays. Serrano's fourth-place time in the 100 meters of 12.057 seconds edged Slippery Rock's Samantha Gilbert by three one-thousandths of a second (12.060 seconds), marking another critical difference in extra points for the Raiders. Mastria finished fourth in the 400-meter finals.
Other noteworthy efforts on the track included
Kelsey Hull stepping up with a fourth-place finish in the 1,500 meters, running 4:41.97 for her first scoring effort at the conference meet.
Melanie Barger took eighth in the 100-meter hurdles, completing the finals in 15.61 seconds.
Another all-around performer who was integral to the Raider cause was Puggé, who ended up competing in two additional events Saturday after having won the heptathlon with her efforts on Thursday and Friday.
Despite entering the javelin competition as the No. 11 seed, Puggé came through with a monstrous personal best throw of 134 feet, 5 inches that was good enough for fifth place and four critical team points. She had recorded her previous PR (123 feet, 6 inches) yesterday during the heptathlon competition, and exceeded that mark by more than 10 feet on Saturday. Puggé also competed in the open shot put on Saturday, finishing 13th.
Payton Bauer paced the Raiders in the shot put, scoring with an eighth-place mark of 40 feet, 6 ¾ inches.
Abby Reasoner battled through injury to score for the Raiders, finishing the javelin just one spot behind Puggé with a sixth-place throw of 131 feet, 11 inches.
Slippery Rock won the 2023 PSAC Women's Outdoor Track & Field Championship with 140.5 points – a 25.5-point margin of victory. The Rock, now led by longtime assistant Bill Jordan, claimed their first league title since 2019.
Complete Results
100
3.
Leah Graybill 11.86 (12.18q)
4.
Aliyah Serrano 12.06 (12.09q)
17.
Kayla Dalhouse 12.67
200
2.
Leah Graybill 23.79 (24.02q)
5.
Aliyah Serrano 24.80 (24.55q)
19.
Kayla Dalhouse 26.02
400
4.
Caroline Mastria 56.97 (56.92q)
10.
Alyssa Wert 59.42
800
10.
Kyra Gerber 2:21.52
1500
4.
Kelsey Hull 4:41.97
5000
14.
Kelsey Hull 18:36.52
19.
Isabelle Gulgert 19:14.71
10K (Thursday)
11.
Belle Weikert 39:44.60
13.
Amanda LaVana 40:01.41
3,000 Steeplechase (Friday)
No entries
100 Hurdles
1.
Sasha Lee 14.07 (14.24q)
8.
Melanie Barger 15.61 (15.30q)
400 Hurdles
9.
Melanie Barger 1:06.73
4x1 Relay
1.
Aliyah Serrano,
Sara McKean,
Kayla Dalhouse,
Leah Graybill 46.33 (46.34q) (PSAC record) (meet record)
4x4 Relay
1.
Alyssa Wert,
Aliyah Serrano,
Leah Graybill,
Caroline Mastria 3:47.14 (meet record)
High Jump (Friday)
4.
Allyson Richwine 5' 3 ¼" (1.61m)
13.
Norah Vallon 4' 11 ½" (1.51m)
Kayla Dalhouse NH
Pole Vault
T10.
Katie McNesby 10' 8 ¼" (3.26m)
13.
Ellie Kuhn 10' 8 ¼" (3.26m)
Long Jump (Friday)
1.
Sara McKean 20' 0 ½" (6.11m)
2.
Sasha Lee 18' 5 ¾" (5.63m)
Triple Jump
1.
Sasha Lee 38' 9 ¾" (11.83m)
Shot Put
8.
Payton Bauer 40' 6 ¾" (12.36m)
13.
Nicola Puggé; 38' 1 ½" (11.62m)
15.
ShanAnn Simmons 37' 6 ½" (11.44m)
17.
Deja Winkler 36' 11 ½" (11.26m)
Discus (Friday)
9.
Makayla Decker 128' 11" (39.29m)
14.
Payton Bauer 120' 6" (36.73m)
16.
ShanAnn Simmons 118' (35.97m)
17.
Lauren Bellows 110' 7" (33.72m)
Hammer (Thursday)
16.
Ashley Adams 141' 11" (43.26m)
Javelin
5.
Nicola Puggé; 134' 5" (40.98m)
6.
Abby Reasoner 131' 11" (40.20m)
13.
Maddie Sieg 115' 2" (35.11m)
14.
Brittany Nye 114' 9" (34.99m)
16.
Katie Mancino 110' 4" (33.62m)
17.
Alexis Keefer 108' 11" (33.20m)
Heptathlon (Friday)
1.
Nicola Puggé; 4525
11.
Kyli Moon-Rumsey 3876
12.
Macy Hines 3833
