Panther women pick up a handful of firsts at Kent State

The Pitt men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams competed in Kent State’s Black… The Pitt men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams competed in Kent State’s Black Squirrel Classic this past weekend. Members of the women’s team placed first in nine different events and finished in the top five 31 times. The men’s team had one first-place finish and 15 members who placed in the top five.

Women

Trenace Elliot finished in first place three times during the two-day event. She finished with times of 25.04 seconds in the 200-meter dash and 55.83 seconds in the 400, as well as being part of the distance medley team that finished in 12 minutes, 4.59 seconds.

“I’m really happy with the way her training has come along,” said head coach Alonzo Webb. “She’s a tough competitor … [and] she ran really well this weekend.”

Janine Jones, a member of the distance medley team, also helped the 4×400-meter relay team finish first with a time of 3:53.23.

Other first place finishers for Pitt in the track events were Maureen McCandless with a 1:39.88 time in the 600-meter run and Tamara McGill, who won the 60-meter hurdles in a time of 8.65.

Colleen Scott also managed a pair of first-place finishes for the Panthers in the field events, placing ahead of all her competitors in the long jump and the triple jump, with distances of 5.61 meters and 12.80 meters, respectively.

Amanda Walker also finished first in a field event, recording a distance of 14.76 meters in the shot put.

Men

The men’s distance medley team took home the only first-place finish for the Panthers, finishing with a time of 10:05.00, nearly five seconds ahead of the second-place team from host Kent State.

Jeryl Wilborn and Troy Roberson, members of the distance medley team, were also part of the 4×400 team that placed a close second with a time of 3:16.55.

Andrew Zang and Justin Clickett were the only other Panthers to finish as runners-up. Zang’s time of 1:23.41 in the 600-meter run and Clickett’s personal best distance of 16.38 meters in the shot put were good enough for second place.

“I think, overall, they performed fairly well,” said Webb. “They’ve been off for a month … and had only three days of practice [since they’ve been back]. But I think we’re slightly ahead of where we were last year.”

The Panthers will be in action next at the Red Simmons Invite in Ann Arbor, Mich., on Jan 24, where Webb feels both teams will continue to perform better.

“We have a hard two weeks of training before the next meet,” he said “And after that [at Penn State], we’ll be able to tell where our team really is.”