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Gritty effort from Lady Hawks produces 3rd place at NAIA Outdoor
MARION, Ind. -- The Shorter University women's track team ran to a third place finish at the 2011 NAIA Women's Outdoor Track and Field National Championship held on the campus of Indiana Weselyan University in Marion, Ind.
The third place result is the best ever for Shorter's fifth-year women's program and marked the second straight year that the Lady Hawks have posted a top-five finish at the national meet -- the Lady Hawks bested their previous high national finish of fourth, which they achieved last season.
Shorter finished with 63 points to place behind champion Concordia (Ore.), which ran away from the field with 84 tallies. Oklahoma Baptist put up 69.5 points to take second place, but the Lady Hawks' performance over the three-day event will go down as their most impressive to date.
This time around, the Lady Hawks overcame a wealth of adversity -- including injuries to two of their most valuable team members -- to rack up its highest point total ever at the national championships.
Senior Justyna Mudy, a five-time national champion that had a chance to tie an NAIA record with six individual national championships, and sophomore Tamala Daley, Shorter's do-it-all athlete that entered the national meet ranked No. 1 in the long jump and in the top five of the triple jump while also serving as a member of the 4x100-meter relay team, each battled injury to produce memorable weeks in Marion.
Mudy, who sat out the entire spring with a foot injury and did not qualify for nationals until the team's final regular season meet, pulled off arguably the most impressive race of her career.
Running the race for the just third time this year, Mudy ran to eight points and a second place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase -- she was the two-time defending national champion in the event -- in 10:38. The NAIA record holder in the steeple with her 10:12 in 2009, Mudy closed out her Shorter career as its most decorated ever with three outdoor national championships and back-to-back NAIA cross country crowns.
Daley, who is poised to become one of the most versatile athletes in Shorter track history, showed why in Marion.
Despite suffering a knee injury that left her nearly unable to walk two weeks ago in Shorter's final regular season meet at Clemson University, Daley jumped her way to a second place finish in the long jump (19 feet, 7 inches) on Thursday and a third place finish in the triple jump (40 feet, 5 inches) on Friday.
On Saturday, with her knee pushed to the limit, Daley teamed up with Ashlie Stewartson, Brittany Sewell and Lakeisha Spikes to send the Lady Hawks to a third place finish in the 4x100-meter relay in a school record time of 45.55.
Certainly not lost in the gutsy outings by Mudy and Daley was the first national championship performance by one of Shorter's most accomplished athletes.
Stewartson, a multiple All-American that has been so valuable to Shorter's rise from a new program to one of the nation's elite, finally broke through for herself, winning the long jump title with a school record leap of 20 feet, 3.75 inches.
Her win allowed Shorter to go 1-2 in the long jump for the first time ever and secured 18 points in Thursday's first day of competition, the most ever for Shorter on the first day of a national meet.
Of course, a national track meet requires a total team effort, and that is exactly what powered Shorter to its third place finish.
Sewell placed sixth in the 100-meter dash (12.080) finals on Friday and Vanderlyn Watts also finished sixth in the 100-meter hurdles (14.11).
Kennisha Holden raced to fourth in the 400-meter hurdles in 59.92 and Jessica Coons was ninth in the same event with a time of 1:02.65.
Junior Sarah Massey completed the best season in her Lady Hawk career by finishing fourth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (10:45) and Shorter's 4x400-meter relay team of Watts, Stewartson, Mia Jones and Sha'Doris Godwin had to endure a three-hour weather delay before taking to the track for its final, in which the Lady Hawks finished sixth in a time of 3:46.53.
Although she did not point, Shorter's Kaitlin Shaw left Marion with an incredible showing in hand.
The senior placed 14th in the women's marathon, completing the course in 3 hours, 10 minutes and 58 seconds to smash Shorter's previous school record by nearly 20 minutes.
While the men broke through for national championships in both indoor and outdoor this season -- Shorter's first-ever NAIA team national championships in any sport -- it is important to recognize the incredible consistency of the Lady Hawks, who have been as instrumental as anyone in growing Shorter's reputation on the national track and field scene.
The Lady Hawks finished fifth at this year's indoor track championships, competing minus the services of Mudy.
The third place finish at the outdoor meet came without the services of Dominque Woods, one of the nation's top-ranked triple jumpers.
Shorter has won three straight Mid-South Conference championships on the women's side and next year, is poised to bring back just about every athlete that scored points at this year's outdoor championships.
