Anderson earns MVP in YSU win

The Penguins’ indoor track team won the Horizon League title.

KENT — Field MVP Bethany Anderson, Breanne Romeo and Danielle Curry helped lead a second-day surge that gave the Youngstown State women’s track and field team its first Horizon League indoor track and field title since 2005.

The Penguins edged Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 170-159, to end its three-year indoor season drought. YSU won Horizon indoor titles in 2004-05 and three straight outdoor championships from 2004-06.

Brian Gorby of YSU was named coach of the year.

“These kids came to run today, and the way it looks we may have an opportunity to put another streak together,” Gorby said. “But we’ll just take it one at a time, and I’m just so proud of what these kids have done.

“I could go all the way down the list,” Gorby said. “We’re talking about 20 or 25 girls who really stepped up for us.

“This year we felt like our team was extremely deep in some areas where we had four or five people in an event compared to one or two for Milwaukee,” Gorby said. “We had a lot of people that finished fourth or fifth to go along with our winners. We have been really young the last couple of years, and you could see that the experience started to come around for us.”

Jerrill Hall was named men’s field newcomer of the year as the Penguins finished runner-up for the third straight year.

Anderson won the weight throw Saturday and placed fourth in the shot put Sunday.

She set meet and school records in the weight throw with a mark of 63 feet, 101⁄2 inches, to win the event for the third straight year.

Anderson, a senior who had won three straight league titles in the shot put, is one of only three athletes in Horizon League history to finish as a three-time champion in two events.

Romeo placed second in the 400 meters, seventh in the 200 and anchored YSU’s 4x400 relay that finished second.

Curry was the only freshman at the meet to claim an individual title, and she provided one of the biggest moments for YSU in the shot put.

The field newcomer of the year was in fourth place heading into her final throw before heaving the shot 44-4 to win by just over 4 inches. She added a fifth-place effort in the weight throw.

Hall was .01 seconds from joining Curry as a freshman league champion in the hurdles. He ran a school-record time of 8.30 seconds to finish second, and he placed second in the high jump and fourth in the long jump.

Sophomore Alisha Anthony defended her league title in the long jump with a leap of 18-91⁄4, and she posted the third-best triple jump mark in school history (37-21⁄4) to finish third. She added personal-best times in the 60 (7.87) and 200 (25.63) to finish third and fourth, respectively, and earn 26 points.

Junior Jen Grayson (Maplewood) added her first career league title in the high jump by clearing a season-best height of 5-6, and Yandeh Joh won the pentathlon with 3,319 points.

Junior Aaron Merrill (Leetonia) added a victory in the shot put, breaking school and meet records with a distance of 57-33⁄4.

Katie Betts earned second-place finishes in the 60 (7.83) and the 200 while Katy Wells, Joh and Emily Dumitru placed second through fourth in the hurdles.

Emily Wollet (57.81) and Kari Kreutzfeld (57.89) placed fourth and fifth in the 400 while Jennifer Roman was fourth in the 800 (2:15.64) and Lisa Lee was sixth (2:18.59).

Ashley Oliver added a sixth-place finish in the 60m (7.93). Kreutzfeld, Roman and Wollet joined Romeo in the 4x400.

In the field, Stephanie Jarvis (10-113⁄4) and Amanda Carpin (10-0) placed third and fourth in the pole vault, and Robyn Ray placed fourth in the high jump (5-01⁄4).

Joh added a fourth-place showing in the long jump (18-01⁄2), and Ray was fifth in the triple jump (36-23⁄4). Alexis Hall added a second-place mark in the weight throw (54-10).

For the men, Eric Baltputnis placed third in the 200 (22.35) and tied for fourth in the 60 (7.08). Jeremiah Wright was third in the 60 (7.05), and Adam Kagarise finished fourth in the 400 (49.10).

Three Penguins scored in the 800: Harold Jones was third (1:53.53), J.D. Sheppard was fourth (1:53.63) and R.D. Goodright placed sixth (1:55.09).

Goodright also finished fifth in the mile (4:17.25) and Jake Lape was sixth in the 5,000 (15:41.70).

In the field, Shayne York was third in the long jump (21-9), Johnny Copley was fourth in the pole vault (14-71⁄4) and Bryin Ehrhardt placed sixth in the high jump (6-2).

John Pallini (50-71⁄2) finished second and Jeremiah Folger (47-8) was fifth in the shot put. Dom DeFilippo was the runner-up in the weight throw (56-13/4), Folger was fifth (52-81⁄4) and Merrill was sixth (52-6).