Missouri State University
MVC Championships
MSU Track and Field Prepped for MVC Indoor Championships
February 25, 2022 | Women's Track & Field
SPRINGFIELD – The Missouri State women's track and field team will head to Chicago this weekend for the Missouri Valley Conference Indoor Championships taking place on Sunday and Monday (Feb. 27-28).Â
Loyola University will serve as the meet host at the Gately Indoor Track and Field Center. This will be the first time the championships have been held at the new facility, which opened in 2020.Â
The Bears are coming off the Arkansas Qualifier, where most of the athletes recorded season, if not lifetime bests. The team looks to ride the momentum it built last weekend and confidently enter the post season. Â
Two-time MVC individual event champion Madison Meredith will be back in action for after a successful regular season indoor campaign, where she collected five event titles to her name. Most recently, she raced her fastest 60-meter dash time of 7.25 and a time of 24.01 in the 200-meter dash at the Arkansas Qualifier on Feb. 18. Her 60-meter time is a Missouri State record, which she has now broken three times. Teammate and fellow sprinter Calandra Henry also earned a season-best time of 7.66 on Feb. 18, earning her a third-place finish. She also recorded a lifetime best in the 200-meter dash of 24.96.Â
On the distance side of things, Edna Dar and Sierra Williams will look to make a splash for MSU in the one-mile run. Dar's time of 4:54.03 puts her at fifth in the conference rankings while Williams sits in sixth. Â
In the field events, Tamia Rayford currently sits atop the conference rankings in the long jump, with her personal best jump of 5.69 meters coming on Feb. 18. Talia Emerson and Brooke Jenkins also hold spots in the top-10 of the MVC standings heading into the championships in fourth (5.48 meters) and sixth (5.46 meters) place, respectively.Â
DaeLin Switzer will look to improve on her third place ranking in high jump at the conference championships. The freshman leapt to a height of 1.72 meters at the Gorilla Classic (Feb. 11) earlier this season. Most recently she won the event at the Arkansas Qualifier with a jump of 1.68 meters. The event title was her second of the season.Â
MSU was picked to finish sixth at the championships in the pre-championship poll which came out Thursday. The Bears received 50 points, coming in just after Drake who received 51 points. Illinois State was picked as the favorite to win the women's championship, with 10 first-place votes for 100 points.Â
"We've been able to outperform our pre-championship poll position in previous years so the goal this weekend is no different," said head coach Jordan Fife. "We know what we're capable of and all we're focused on is bringing our best when it matters most. We'll walk away satisfied if we can do that."Â
Last season the Bears finished in fifth place out of the field of 10 women's teams competing at the 2021 indoor championships.Â
The championship meet will kick off at 9:30 a.m. on both days, with the pentathlon and heptathlon followed by field and track events. Â
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