NORTHFIELD, Minn. – Three first years scored for the St. Olaf College women's track and field team to give the Oles 15 points in the pentathlon to kick off the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Indoor Track & Field Championships on Thursday at Carleton College's Recreation Center.
First year
Claire Stein broke the program record, set by Mackenzie Schoustra '20 in 2020, by one point to finish as the runner-up with 3,426 points, while classmates
Svea Frantzich and
Annika Walsh took fifth and sixth, respectively. The trio gave the Oles 15 points in the team standings, putting St. Olaf in second place and one point behind Concordia-Moorhead out of the four teams to score points in the pentathlon.
Stein finished 46 points behind Concordia first year Lauren Pearson and was 200 points ahead of the third-place finisher as the duo battled to become the first first year to win the conference pentathlon crown since St. Olaf's Dani Larson '15 in 2012. Stein trailed Pearson by 46 points heading into the 800-meter run before the duo ran identical times of 2:25.26 in the fifth and final event.
Stein posted top-three finishes in four of the five events on the day and logged four personal-best marks/times to register a top-20 score in NCAA Division III this season with her 3,426 points. The first year started the day by taking second in the 55-meter hurdles (8.63) before finishing third in the high jump with a personal-best clearance of 1.59 meters (5' 2 ½"). A ninth-place result in the shot put (8.84m, 29' 0") left Stein 149 points behind Pearson, but Stein won the long jump (5.30m, 17' 4 ¾") to give herself a chance to win it in the 800-meter run. Stein's time in the 800 was a PR by over nine seconds but not enough to surpass Pearson.
In addition to Stein's All-MIAC accolade, Frantzich and Walsh claimed two of the three Honorable Mention All-MIAC spots in fifth and sixth with top-10 program scores of 3,091 (9th) and 3,073 points (10th), respectively. After sitting in eighth through three events, Frantzich moved up to sixth with a third-place showing in the long jump (5.20m, 17' ¾") before climbing one more spot to fifth with an over-five-second PR in the 800-meter run (2:34.76).
Walsh had one of the highlights of the day for St. Olaf by winning the high jump by clearing 1.65 meters (5' 5") for the highest clearance by an Ole since 2014 to move up to second through two events. Walsh had personal-best times or marks in all five events to place sixth, while senior
Claire Keech finished 14th with 2,664 points.
Friday's action will start with field events at 4 p.m. and track events at 4:30 p.m.
