Four YSU athletes capture titles

Staff report

INDIANAPOLIS

Youngstown State’s Alisha Anthony, Kaitlyn Griffith, Samantha Hamilton and Jessica Parham captured individual event titles on Sunday at the Horizon League track and field tournament at Butler University.

Those victories helped move YSU’s women’s team into second place overall after eight scored events.

For the men, YSU’s Bobby Grace took second place in the hammer throw as the top finisher.

Anthony won her first Horizon League outdoor long jump title and tied the school record with a leap of 6.02 meters.

Freshmen Kendall Homan and Katrina Rettburg also finished in the top eight in the long jump. Homan was sixth (5.46 meters) while Rettburg was eighth (5.31 meters).

In the hammer throw, Griffith, who had the top mark in the league coming into the competition, won with a personal-best mark of 54.88 meters. She was followed by teammate Alexis Hall, who finished second with a throw of 49.73 meters.

Hamilton won her second consecutive title in the steeplechase in a time of 10:56.87, barely a second off of her personal-best time set earlier this season. She won the title last year in a time of 11:07.72.

Parham, a freshman, took the title in the javelin with a mark of 41.89 meters. Teammates Lyndsie Hall and Melanie Prelac finished fifth and sixth, respectively, with throws of 37.53 meters and 35.85 meters.

With 72 points, the women are five points behind the University of Wisconsin-Madison after eight events have been scored.

On the men’s side, Grace placed second in the hammer with a personal-best throw of 55.11 meters. George Thomas finished fifth (49.38 meters), Caleb Schwan placed sixth (48.96 meters) while Jeremiah Folger rounded out the top eight (44 meters).

Throwing for 48.66m, Tarelle Irwin took third in the javelin. In the pole vault, Johny Copley finished third in a season-best 4.70 meters while Joseph Bialik reached a height of 4.40 meters for fifth place.

In the steeplechase, Eric Rupe ran a time of 9:35.34 for a fourth-place finish.

Michael Oyegoke leaped 6.50 meters to finish seventh in the long jump.

The men’s team has 43 points after eight events have been scored. The University of Wisconsin-Madison is in first place with 103 points while Butler is in third with 33 points.