March 1, 2015
Track & Field|Roster|Twitter| Final Results
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa - Missouri State claimed a Missouri Valley Conference Championship in the 4x400 meter relay. The Bears entered the race as the 1600m relay favorites, and won by nearly two seconds with a time of 3:43.34, over runner up Indiana State (3:35.30). The team consisted of Rosalie Pringle, Shani Adams, Oarabile Babolayi, and Althia Maximilien.
"We had a good run on the (4x400 meter) relay," said Director of Track & Field Ronald Boyce. "It was good to end the meet with that win."
The Sycamore women did prevail as the champions of the conference, after collecting 122 team points. Southern Illinois (119) finished second, ahead of Wichita State (103.50), Northern Iowa (77.50), and Illinois State (72). Missouri State placed sixth in the team standings with 58 points, with Bradley (47), Drake (34), and Loyola (24) behind the Bears.
The 60m hurdle school record, which had been in place since 2005, was broken in Saturday's prelims by Babolayi. In Sunday's final, Babolayi knocked another four-hundredth of a second off her MSU-best time to finish the 60 meter hurdles in fourth with a time of 8.51.
Both Bears in the triple jump set personal records and earned team points for Missouri State. Robiann Broomfield finished as the Valley's runner-up with a distance of 12.58m. Daijha Heron placed seventh in the event with a PR of 12.14m.
The other Missouri State athlete to medal on Sunday was senior Maximilien. The three-time All-MVC performer in the 400m dash, finished second in the event with a time of 54.97 in her senior year. Also scoring for the Bears were Adams (56.07) and Babolayi (57.02), who respectively finished fifth and sixth in the 400m.
Following the prelims from the day before, Chelsey Borders placed eighth in the 60m dash finals with a time of 7.74.
"We had a couple of events that we let get away from us, and those add up," said Boyce. "We get going into outdoor in three weeks and we look forward to that."
This concluded the 2015 indoor campaign for the Bears. Missouri State will transition to focusing on outdoor track & field now, with the first meet scheduled for March 25-28 at the 88th running of the Texas Relays in Austin, Tex.
