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Monday, March 2, 2015
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Track & field posts historic finish at MACs Results
Frank Gogola Sports Editor T @FrankGogola
Track and field finished in fourth place and had three event victories as it enjoyed an historic weekend at the MAC Indoor Championships. The Huskies’ 79 team points was good for fourth out of 12 teams Friday and Saturday in Mount Pleasant, Mich. It’s the highest point total and highest finish in school history at the MAC Indoor Championships. They finished 10th last year with 37 points. “That’s a huge accomplishment for a team and a big jump in a short period of time,” said head coach Connie Teaberry. “A lot of that is due to the ladies’ hard work and dedication, but it’s also maturity. The girls are mentally getting stronConnie Teaberry ger and physi- Head coach cally getting stronger. So, moving up is a huge accomplishment for the team and one we will not take for granted. We’ll work even harder to make sure we can stay there.” The Huskies took first place in three events over the two days, winning the pentathlon, 60-meter hurdles and 4-by-400-meter relay. They came into the meet having only won two indoor championship events in school history.
First place (10 points) • Claudette Day, pentathlon, 3,838 points • Latesha Bigby, 60-meter hurdles, 8.42 seconds (personal record) • Four-by-400-meter relay team, 3:47.82 Second place (eight points) • Day, 60-meter hurdles, 8.53 seconds • A’Iesha Irvin-Muhammad, 60-meter dash, 7.551 seconds • Irvin-Muhammad, 200-meter dash, 24.46 seconds
• Kelsey Hildreth, 5K run, 16:53.03 Fifth place (four points) • Sidra Sherrill, shot put, 15.10 meters (school record) Sixth place (three points) • Distance medley relay team, 12:03.24 • Hildreth, 3K, 9:40.32 (school record)
Eighth place (one point) • Jamie Burr, 800-meter run, 2:18.95 • Tyra Bickham, shot put, 14.34 Third place (six points) meters (personal record) • Bigby, pentathlon, 3,766 points • Chennel Palmer, high jump Photo courtesy NIU media relations
Sophomore Claudette Day participates in the NCAA Outdoor Championships June 14 in Eugene, Ore. Day scored 18 of the Huskies’ 79 team points Friday and Saturday at the MAC Indoors Championships in Mount Pleasant, Mich., winning the pentathlon and finishing second in the 60-meter hurdles.
“Our team overall did very, very well,” said senior Latesha Bigby. “We went to war, and even though we made minor [mistakes] we went to war and we did our best.” Claudette Day Sophomore Claudette Day became the first Huskie in school history to win the pentathlon at the MAC Indoor Championships. She scored 3,838 across the five events, the opening competition Friday. Day said going into the final event of the heptathlon — the
800-meter run — she had figured out what she needed to get first place but still gave it her all. “Once I looked up and saw the time [2:29.57] I knew I won,” Day said. “It felt really good.” Latesha Bigby Bigby placed first in the 60-meter hurdles Saturday, becoming the fourth Huskie to be crowned an indoor conference champion. She registered a personal-record time of 8.42 seconds. “I’m just very proud of myself,”
Bigby said. “I didn’t see that coming. I didn’t expect to get the first place. I had to compete Latesha Bigby with some of Senior the best in the conference, and to know I won the race I feel very, very good about that. I felt really good to see my name at the top and get the win for my team.”
relay. It’s the first win in the event at the conference indoor championships in school history. Bigby, senior Julianne Cronin, sophomore A’Iesha Irvin-Muhammad and freshman Ashanti Hutton combined for a time of 3:47.82. Their win in the final event of the competition Saturday contributed 10 points to NIU’s 79 team points and fourth-place finish. “I was elated that we took fourth place,” Day said. “I was really happy because last year we didn’t do Four-by-400-meter relay team so well. This year to come back The Huskies closed out the MAC and get fourth [place] and show Indoor Championships with a first- everybody that we could do it, it place finish in the 4-by-400-meter was a great feeling.”
Frazier not in favor of freshman ineligibility Frank Gogola Sports Editor T @FrankGogola
DeKalb | Athletic Director Sean
Frazier opposes the idea of freshman ineligibility. Freshman ineligibility would force incoming freshmen to sit out their first year of college athletics to better adapt to college academics. The “year of readiness for all sports — or select sports” is an idea floated out by the Big Ten in a Feb. 24 news release in which the conference reached out to “thought leaders” prior to the 2016 NCAA National Convention. “I think it’s propaganda,” Frazier said. “I think that those who brought this up — although wellintentioned — I think this is a way to divert the real issue. I think that the situation is that freshman Sean Frazier ineligibility is Athletic director a great way to throw us off track about making sure that student-athletes have balance in their lives both academically and athletically.” Freshmen were deemed ineligible by an NCAA rule up until 1972. Freshman ineligibility was scrapped because of financial motives, according to a Feb. 19 The Diamondback article. Frazier said he’s “not sold” on freshman ineligibility. As a
Freshman ineligibility Read the Big Ten’s new release online at bit.ly/18Ccebb. data-driven guy he said he’d like to see metrics that freshmen on all levels can’t balance academics and athletics before they have their eligibility stripped. NIU’s student-athletes have posted a graduation success rate of 89 percent, a new high for the third-straight year, according to an October NIU Athletics news release. The football team, which has made it to five-straight MAC Championship games, registered a GSR of 91 percent, which is eighth-best in the country among FBS teams and first among public institutions that played in bowl games this past season, according to a February news release. “We’ve got the secret sauce here,” Frazier said. “It’s called paying attention to your athletes socially, academically and athletically. … I think taking them out in their freshman year because you feel they need to focus more on academics ... is a mistake. “I think you need to focus on the holistic approach of the studentathlete. … You need to fix the issues around the total experience for the student-athlete, and those have to do with connectivity across campus, in your community and in your athletic department.”