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Grambling helps YSU women keep Horizon League indoor title
Grambling,
YSU women
retain
indoor title
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
As she got ready to run the 4x400-meter relay for either the first time in her life or the first time since high school (she can’t remember), Youngstown State senior Nina Grambling began pacing back and forth, wringing her hands while trying to catch her breath.
“I’ve never been so nervous before a race,” she said.
It was the final event of Sunday’s Horizon League indoor track and field championship and the Penguins were clinging to a three-point lead over Milwaukee, which happened to have the fastest 4x400 relay in the WATTS. First place was worth 10 points. Second place was worth eight.
That left a little wiggle room. But only a little.
The Panthers quickly grabbed first place, while YSU was in fourth after the first two legs. As Grambling got the baton from Megan Gunther, the music inside the WATTS switched from the guitar solo in “We Will Rock You” to “We Are The Champions.” On cue, Grambling switched YSU’s position from fourth to second.
“I just ran the first 200 [meters] like I run the regular 200,” Grambling said. “When I got to the 300, I was dead. Every time I touched the ground, I wanted to stop, but Jen [Shiley, the anchor] was right up there and I was like, ‘Just get it to Jen, just get it to Jen.’”
She got it to Jen.
Shiley — the conference 400-meter champion — couldn’t quite catch Milwaukee’s anchor over the final leg, but she easily held on to second, clinching YSU’s second straight indoor league title, 131-130, just before she collapsed at the finish line.
“I thought I lost it,” said Shiley, a Fitch High graduate. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I needed to beat Milwaukee and I didn’t.’ Then everyone was like, ‘You did it! You won!’ And I’m like, ‘What?’
“I was just so relieved.”
Grambling won individual titles in the 60 and the 200 — she also set the Horizon League record in the 200 (24.43) during Saturday’s preliminaries — and finished second in the long jump to earn three individual trophies: outstanding track performer of the meet, high point scorer of the meet and Horizon League female athlete of the year.
Each time she stepped atop the podium, she held up her index finger and pinky, turning Texas’ “Hook ’em Horns” gesture into “Fly with the Y.”
“Now it’s Youngs-town’s,” she said.
Teammate Taylor McDonald was named Horizon League freshman of the year after leading off the 4x400 and finishing fourth in the 60 hurdles. YSU’s Mackenzie Sturtz (high jump) and Jennifer Neider (shot put) also won individual titles on Sunday as the Penguins overcame injuries to several key athletes to pull the upset.
“I must have had six coaches come up to me and tell me, ‘I don’t know how you did it,’” said YSU coach Brian Gorby, who was named Horizon League women’s coach of the year. “Every one of them had us down 30 or 40 points [entering the meet].”
It was Gorby’s 24th conference title — a number that includes indoor and outdoor track and cross country — and, thanks to November’s conference cross country title, it puts the Penguins in position to win their second straight running triple crown.
“We did what we needed to do,” Shiley said. “We needed to defend our title, especially in our house.”