APSU Sports Information
Nashville, TN – In one of the south’s most prestigious meets, which often heralds one of spring’s first beautiful days in the Middle Tennessee area, Austin Peay State University (APSU) track and field used the excellent weather to its advantage, posting top marks this weekend at the Vanderbilt Black and Gold.
Saturday’s top finisher for the Govs was sophomore 400m runner Sabrina Richman, whose 55.21 mark gave her runner-up honors to Middle Tennessee’s Joycelyn Assafuah by less than two-tenths of a second and would put her inside the top-30 regionally and put some distance between her and the rest of the Ohio Valley Conference based on marks entering the weekend.
In addition, junior Amelia Thiesing’s 56.98 mark placed her 10th and is her first time under 57 seconds since last season’s OVC Outdoor Championships.
Sophomore Lennex Walker blazed her way down the track in the 100m hurdles with a 14.38 mark to capture seventh overall, with freshman Camaryn McClelland (12th, 14.71) and sophomore Kamille Dunbar (13th, 14.75) right there with her near the top of the lists. Meanwhile in the 800m run, freshman Maddie Morstad won the third heat of the 800m run, setting the pace with a career-best 2:16.12 mark.
Senior Nia Gibbs-Francis got Saturday started off right with a 1.61m high jump mark, placing her sixth based on number of attempts. She’s now earned a top-eight finish in her last three high jump attempts dating back to the end of indoor season.
Freshman Kyra Wilder picked up a pair of heat wins, beginning Friday with the win in the fifth heat of the 200m dash, where she finished 11th overall with a 24.55 mark. She came back Saturday and won the fourth heat in the 100m dash with a 12.24 mark, placing 15th overall.
In the same event, junior Tymeitha Tolbert’s 12.01 was good for 10th and is just five-hundredths of a second from her mark at last season’s Georgia Tech Invitational—a late-April event that indicates she’s right on track for another run for the NCAA East Preliminary. Wilder, Walker, Diamond Battle and Tiyanna Johnson combined to give the Govs an eighth-place finish in Saturday’s 4x100m relay with a 48.45 mark.
Also in late Friday action, senior Emmaculate Kiplagat posted a seventh-place finish in the 5000m run with an 18:05.24 mark; that’s her best mark in the 5000m, indoor or outdoor, since April 21st, 2018 at Georgia Tech.
In the meet’s final event, the Govs put Thiesing, Wilder, Richman and Allana Johnson into the 4x400m relay and the quartet responded with a 3:50.47 mark to take runner-up honors at the line against Ball State. A second quartet of Morstad, Jessica Kelley, Mikaela Smith and Molly Howard placed seventh at 4:04.87.
Next week, the APSU Govs will find themselves graduating from one of the south’s best offerings to one of the nation’s most prestigious meets, the Florida Relays, which begin Friday, March 29th, in Gainesville, FL.
