Michigan
Big Ten Indoor Championships
Wolverine Women Ready for Big Ten Indoor Championships
2/26/2020 6:14:00 PM | Women's Track & Field
THIS WEEK
Fri-Sat., Feb. 28-29 -- at Big Ten Indoor Championships (Geneva, Ohio)
Meet Central
Friday, Feb. 28 -- at Big Ten Championships, 10:50 a.m.
TV: BTN+ / FloTrack | Live Results | Live Video: BTN+ / FloTrack
Saturday, Feb. 29 -- at Big Ten Championships, 11 a.m.
TV: BTN+ / FloTrack | Live Results | Live Video: BTN+ / FloTrack
• Social Media: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The 2020 indoor postseason will get underway this weekend for the University of Michigan women's track and field team as the Wolverines take on the conference's best at the Big Ten Indoor Championships this Friday and Saturday (Feb. 28-29) at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.
Reigning Big Ten Indoor 600-meter champion Aurora Rynda is back with three other returning scorers from the ninth-place 2019 squad, which looks to be bolstered by the conference-leading 4x400 relay team of Emma Lane, Jade Harrison, Julia Hall and Chloe Foster, and contenders in every discipline across the board.
Action at the SPIRE Institute -- which features an oversized, flat 300-meter track -- will begin Friday at 10:50 a.m. with the start of the five-event pentathlon, followed by track competition starting at noon and field events beginning for Michigan at 1:15 p.m. The full Friday program, which includes preliminary rounds for individual races measuring a mile or shorter plus finals in select field events and the 3,000-meter and distance medley relay events, is expected to conclude by 6:45 p.m.
Saturday will be a finals-only schedule, beginning with field events at 11 a.m. Events on the track get rolling at 12:55 p.m. with finals for all remaining events to be contested through the scheduled conclusion of the meet at 4:45 p.m.
In each final, points will be awarded to athletes based on their finish order. Those points make up the basis for the team scoring that will be used to determine the overall team champion and the final standings. Event winners are awarded 10 points for their team, with each placer through eighth also accruing team points (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1).
The Wolverines are in a strong position to pick up points across the board, with athletes ranked top-10 in nine of 18 events heading into the weekend.
Big Ten Network's online BTN Plus service and FloTrack's subscription platform will live stream the meet on Friday and Saturday.
Updates will be provided throughout the weekend from the women's and men's meets on the team's official Twitter account, @umichtrack.
For those planning to attend in-person, tickets are available both in single-day and all-session options. Single-day tickets are $15 for general admission and $8 for Big Ten students with ID. All-session passes are $25 for general admission and $15 for Big Ten students with ID. All active military and children under the age of six years are free.
Wolverine Bites
• The Wolverines, led by head coaches James Henry and Jerry Clayton, checked in at No. 56 nationally in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) National Track and Field Rating Index (TFRI) that was released Monday (Feb. 24).
• Rynda, who won the 600-meter title as a first-year collegian in 2019, is looking to become the first woman from any school to win multiple consecutive 600-meter titles since former Wolverine Katie Erdman won the third and fourth titles of her career in this event in 2003 and 2004. Though she has not yet run a 600-meter race in 2020, Rynda appears poised for a fast time after running a career-best 2:05.39 over 800 meters earlier this month. Based on her 2019 best of 1:29.55, she would be seeded third in the field.
• Michigan's top-ranked entry of the weekend is its 4x400 relay team of Lane, Harrison, Hall and Foster that broke the Michigan school record two weekends ago. The squad clocked 3:36.70 to break the U-M record by more than a second and to grab the 2020 Big Ten lead by nearly two full seconds. Should that quartet close out the conference meet with a victory, it would be the first indoor 4x400 relay title for Michigan in school history.
• With 13 conference titles in the distance medley relay since 2004, no school has been more dominant in a single event at these championships in recent history than Michigan in the distance medley relay. The squad of Alice Hill, Foster, Rynda and Meg Darmofal clocked a 11:05.89 at Notre Dame last weekend that has them ranked No. 2 in the conference and No. 11 nationally -- very tentatively just inside the NCAA qualifying bubble with the latter rank -- and could be looking for a quicker time to solidify their NCAA postseason standing and to regain the Big Ten title from in-state rival Michigan State.
• In addition to their relay duties, Foster and Harrison both are looking to make waves in the open 400-meter competition. Both women have scored at the conference meet in their careers, with Foster taking fourth at 600 meters in 2019 and Harrison going on a school-record run to take fifth at SPIRE in 2017 over 400 meters. Foster is in career-best form and ranked fourth in 2020, while Harrison is showing signs of returning to that 2017 form as the sixth-fastest women in the conference this winter. With another improvement, Lane could make a run at scoring as well, as her personal-record 54.95 from two weekends ago ranks her ninth in the conference.
• Similarly, Darmofal and Hill also are aiming to contribute individual points to the team in the mile in addition to their relay efforts. Both women scored in this event in 2019, with Darmofal taking fifth and Hill crossing the line in sixth. In the interim, both women have recorded new personal bests by more than three seconds and, like Foster and Harrison, are ranked fourth and sixth in the Big Ten, respectively.
• Michigan also has a pair of women positioned to potentially score big points in the high jump with Katt Miner and Jada Wimberly. With her season-opening 1.80m (5 feet, 10.75 inches) clearance in January, Miner is still ranked tied for third in the conference while Wimberly is seventh at 1.77m (5-9.75). Miner has Big Ten scoring on her resume from the 2018 Big Ten Outdoor Championships, while this will be Wimberly's first postseason appearance since her 2017 collegiate debut season.
• This weekend will mark the collegiate track and field postseason debut of cross country All-America Ericka VanderLende, who will contest the 5,000 meters on Saturday. The Big Ten Cross Country Freshman of the Year made her 5,000-meter track debut two weekends ago with a 16:16.46 that ranks her 10th in school history and fifth among Big Ten women in 2020.
• Courtney Jacobsen and Briana Nelson have shredded the school record books in the weight throw in 2020, and now are looking to take their seasons to the next level by scoring at the Big Ten Championships. Both women have been over 20 meters multiple times in 2020, and it will take another such performance to finish top eight this weekend with nine women who have surpassed that threshold in the meet.
• With a season-best 8.53 in the 60-meter hurdles at the home-finale Silverston Invitational last Friday, Michaiah Thomas is making a late surge toward potentially scoring for the Wolverines in that event. She is currently tied for ninth in the conference, with the top nine women in Friday's preliminaries to advance to Saturday's final.
Michigan Student-Athletes Ranked Top-50 Nationally
| Name | Event | Rank |
| Chloe Foster | 600m | 11 |
| Julia Hall | 600m | 20 |
| Annie Taylor | 600m | 43 |
| Aurora Rynda | 800m | 13 |
| Alice Hill | 800m | 47 |
| Meg Darmofal | Mile | 29 |
| Alice Hill | Mile | 37 |
| Ericka VanderLende | 3,000m | 46 |
| Ericka VanderLende | 5,000m | 32 |
| Katt Miner | High Jump | 13 |
| Jada Wimberly | High Jump | 33 |
| Amanda Schaare | Shot Put | 50 |
| Courtney Jacobsen | Weight Throw | 41 |
| Briana Nelson | Weight Throw | 42 |
When to Watch the Wolverines
Times are subject to change as final schedules are published.
| Friday - Big Ten Indoor Championships | |||
| Name | Event | Round | Time (ET) |
| Meg Darmofal | Mile | Prelims | 12:40 PM |
| Alice Hill | Mile | Prelims | 12:40 PM |
| Jena Metwalli | Mile | Prelims | 12:40 PM |
| Courtney Jacobsen | Weight Throw | Final | 1:15 PM |
| Briana Nelson | Weight Throw | Final | 1:15 PM |
| Chloe Foster | 400 meter dash | Prelims | 1:20 PM |
| Jade Harrison | 400 meter dash | Prelims | 1:20 PM |
| Emma Lane | 400 meter dash | Prelims | 1:20 PM |
| Jenna Reid | 400 meter dash | Prelims | 1:20 PM |
| Ameia Wilson | 60 meter dash | Prelims | 2:10 PM |
| Amber Gall | 800 meter run | Prelims | 2:50 PM |
| Eva Jansohn | 800 meter run | Prelims | 2:50 PM |
| Julia Sullivan | 800 meter run | Prelims | 2:50 PM |
| Annie Taylor | 800 meter run | Prelims | 2:50 PM |
| Paige Chapman | 60 meter hurdles | Prelims | 3:30 PM |
| Michaiah Thomas | 60 meter hurdles | Prelims | 3:30 PM |
| Julia Hall | 600 meter run | Prelims | 4:10 PM |
| Aurora Rynda | 600 meter run | Prelims | 4:10 PM |
| Jeryne Fish | Long Jump | Final | 4:45 PM |
| Ameia Wilson | Long Jump | Final | 4:45 PM |
| Jade Harrison | 200 meter dash | Prelims | 5:00 PM |
| Kathryn House | 3,000 meter run | Final | 5:50 PM |
| Samantha Saenz | 3,000 meter run | Final | 5:50 PM |
| Emma Sloan | 3,000 meter run | Final | 5:50 PM |
| Julia Vanitvelt | 3,000 meter run | Final | 5:50 PM |
| Michigan A | Distance Medley Relay | Final | 6:30 PM |
| Saturday - Big Ten Indoor Championships | |||
| Name | Event | Round | Time (ET) |
| Katt Miner | High Jump | Final | 11:00 AM |
| Jada Wimberly | High Jump | Final | 11:00 AM |
| Briana Nelson | Shot Put | Final | 11:15 AM |
| Amanda Schaare | Shot Put | Final | 11:15 AM |
| Chika Amene | Triple Jump | Final | 1:00 PM |
| Sydney McGinley | Triple Jump | Final | 1:00 PM |
| * Meg Darmofal | Mile | Final | 1:20 PM |
| * Alice Hill | Mile | Final | 1:20 PM |
| * Jena Metwalli | Mile | Final | 1:20 PM |
| * Chloe Foster | 400 meter dash | Final | 1:40 PM |
| * Jade Harrison | 400 meter dash | Final | 1:40 PM |
| * Emma Lane | 400 meter dash | Final | 1:40 PM |
| * Jenna Reid | 400 meter dash | Final | 1:40 PM |
| * Ameia Wilson | 60 meter dash | Final | 2:00 PM |
| * Amber Gall | 800 meter run | Final | 2:20 PM |
| * Eva Jansohn | 800 meter run | Final | 2:20 PM |
| * Julia Sullivan | 800 meter run | Final | 2:20 PM |
| * Annie Taylor | 800 meter run | Final | 2:20 PM |
| * Paige Chapman | 60 meter hurdles | Final | 2:40 PM |
| * Michaiah Thomas | 60 meter hurdles | Final | 2:40 PM |
| * Julia Hall | 600 meter run | Final | 3:00 PM |
| * Aurora Rynda | 600 meter run | Final | 3:00 PM |
| * Jade Harrison | 200 meter dash | Final | 3:20 PM |
| Raquel Powers | 5000 meter run | Final | 3:40 PM |
| Maddy Trevisan | 5,000 meter run | Final | 3:40 PM |
| Ericka VanderLende | 5,000 meter run | Final | 3:40 PM |
| Michigan A | 4x400 relay | Final | 4:20 PM |
* = Pending advancement from previous round
Players Mentioned
