UAH Claims Peach Belt Men’ s and Women’ s Track and Field Championship Titles!

Alabama-Huntsville took the top spot in women’ s team standings finishing with a grand total of 171 points, to win the inaugural Peach Belt Conference women’ s Track & Field Champioship at Barron Stadium in Rome, Ga. Nova Southeastern( 163) and Shorter( 145) rounded out the top three in the women’ s team standings.

The morning got underway with the Women’ s 1500m; Kristina Delpesche( 4:49.79) and Renee Usher( 4:52.94) of Columbus State took first and second, while Brittaney Smash of Nova Southeastern finished third with a 4:53.83

Women’ s 400m dash was next, with Nova Southeastern’ s Jessica Osteen coming in first with a time of 56.07, next was Eden Williams of Alabama-Huntsville in a time of 57.38, and third place went to Quannisha Allen of Nova Southeaster with a 57.63.

In the Women’ s 100m, Shorter’ s Lakeisha Spikes took top honors in a time of 12.28; followed by Katelin Barber( 12.41) of Alabama-Huntsville and Ciona Williams( 12.46) of Nova Southeastern.

Shorter placed the top two runners in the Women’ s 100m Hurdles with Zandra Lake( 15.03) earning the championship and Chelsey Thomas( 15.05) taking the runner-up position. Kimaya Johnson( 15.42) of Alabama-Huntsville finished in third.

In the Women’ s 800m, Rachel McDaniel of Shorter finished first with a time of 2:21.11; followed by Renee Usher of Columbus State with a 2:22.01, and Kristina Delpesche, also of Columbus State, finished third with a 2:23.31.

Lakeisha Spike of Shorter took top honors in the Women’ s 200m with a time of 24.80; followed by Nova Southeastern’ s Ciona Williams( 25.26) and Nicole Poole( 25.58).

For the Women’ s 5000m, Shea Spicher of Shorter finished first with a time of 17:37.10; followed by Paige Galvin of Clayton State with an 18:14.33 and Peri Bowman of Nova Southeastern with an 18:21.17.

In the Women’ s 400m Hurdles, Jessica Osteen of Nova Southeastern won the championship with a time of 1:01.97; Shorter’ s Sarah Jude finished second with a 1:04.64, and Liva Mahaffie of UNC Pembroke rounded out the top three with a time of 1:04.93.

The Men’ s and Women’ s 4x400m relay were the final events of the day. Nova Southeastern won the woman’ s relay with a time of 3:49.13, followed by Shorter with a 3:53.37, and Alabama-Huntsville with a 3:53.37.

Jessica Covington of Clayton State won the Women’ s High Jump championship with a distance of 1.66m; Chelsey Thomas of Shorter came in second with 1.63m, and Nadia Araiinejad finished third with 1.53m.

In the Women’ s Triple Jump Shorter’ s Tamala Daley finished first with a distance of 12.16m; next was Jessica Matthews( 11.68m) of Clayton State and Jhaquil Richardson( 11.29m) of Clayton State. In the Women’ s Discus finals, Chantil Bradford of Columbus State took first with a distance of 42.32m, next was Hanna Metzinger with 38.56m, and Alisia Mathews of Alabama-Huntsville with 33.90m.

In the Javelin, Madison Brown of Montevallo took top honors for the women with a distance of 35.62m; followed by Hanna Metzinger of UNC Pembroke with 35.24m, and Nadia Araiinejad with 34.84m.

Lastly, the Women’ s Shot Put was won by Chatil Bradford of Columbus State with a distance of 12.53m, followed by Elisa Baskin( 12.05m) of Alabama-Huntsville and Samaria Roberson( 11.62m) of Columbus State.

PBC Athletes to Run at NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships

INDIANAPOLIS, IND-- Four PBC women’ s track and field athletes learned that they will compete in the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track & Field Championships as the organization released the participants on Monday. Clayton State’ s Shannon Smith and Jessica Matthews will run along with Alabama-Huntsville’ s Kedeshia Simpson and Nova South-

100m 1st Team- Lakeisha Spikes, Shorter 2nd Team- Katelin Barber, UAH 3rd Team- Ciona Williams, Nova

200m 1st- Lakeisha Spikes, Shorter 2nd- Ciona Williams, Nova 3rd- Nicole Poole, Nova

400m 1st- Jessica Osteen, Nova 2nd- Eden Williams, UAH 3rd- Quannisha Allen, Nova

800m 1st- Rachel McDaniel, Shorter 2nd- Renee Usher, CSU 3rd- Kristina Delpesche, CSU

1500m 1st- Kristina Delpesche, CSU 2nd- Renee Usher, CSU 3rd- Brittaney Smash, Nova

5000m 1st- Shea Spicher, Shorter 2nd- Paige Galvin, Clayton 3rd- Peri Bowman, Nova

10,000m 1st- Michelle Kruse, UAH 2nd- Kaley Glover, UM 3rd- Moneka English, CSU

100 Hurdles 1st- Zandra Lake, Shorter 2nd- Chelsey Thomas, Shorter 3rd- Kimaya Johnson, UAH

400 Hurdles 1st- Jessica Osteen, Nova 2nd- Sarah Jude, Shorter 3rd- Livia Mahaffie, UNCP

3000m Steeplechase 1st- Peri Bowman, Nova 2nd- Rose Howell, Nova 3rd- Alexandria Palm, Nova

4x100 Relay 1st- Alabama-Huntsville 2nd- Nova Southeastern 3rd- Shorter

4x400 Relay 1st- Nova Southeastern 2nd- Shorter 3rd- Alabama-Huntsville

High Jump 1st- Jessica Covington, Clayton 2nd- Chelsea Thomas, Shorter 3rd- Nadia Arainejad, UAH

Pole Vault 1st- Vanessa Munley, Nova 2nd- Brittany Todaro, Nova 3rd- Janell Azaret, Nova

Long Jump 1st- Tamala Daley, Shorter 2nd- Alex Briscoe, UAH 3rd- Desni Scaife, UAH

Triple Jump 1st- Tamala Daley, Shorter 2nd- Jessica Matthews, Clayton 3rd- Jhaquil Richardson, Clayton

Shot Put 1st- Chatil Bradford, CSU 2nd- Elisa Baskin, UAH 3rd- Samaria Roberson, CSU

Discus 1st- Chati Bradford, CSU 2nd- Hanna Metzinger, UNCP 3rd- Alisia Mathews, UAH

Hammer 1st- Hanna Metzinger, UNCP 2nd- Nwanneka Nnaka, ASU 3rd- Meagan Smith, Shorter

Javelin 1st- Madison Brown, UM 2nd- Hanna Metzinger, UNCP 3rd- Nadia Arainejad, UAH

eastern’ s Jessica Osteen. In addition, the women’ s 4x100 relay teams from both Nova and

UAH will compete.

The championships will be held May 23-25 in Pueblo, Colo., at the Neta and Eddie DeRose ThunderBowl. Colorado State-Pueblo will serve as host of the championships.

Clayton State senior Shannon Smith will compete on Saturday, May 25th in the high jump at 5:30 p. m.( MDT). Smith, who also was a member of the Clayton State’ s 32-1 women’ s basketball team that advanced to the NCAA Division II“ Elite Eight,” will be one of 21 participants in the event.

Smith qualified for nationals in the high jump, clearing 5-7 ¾( 1.72m) at Furman’ s Blue Shoes Invitational. Her jump is tied for 16th on this year’ s top performance list.

Matthews will be the first to compete in the meet as she qualified in the triple jump. The women’ s triple jump will be held at 5:15 p. m.( MDT) on Friday, May 24th.

Matthews enters the field of 21 participants with ninth best triple jump this season. She set a new school record in the triple jump with a leap of 40-foot 7 ¾ inches( 12.39m) at the Coach“ O” Invitational earlier this year.

Kedeshia Simpson will compete in both the 100m and 200m events, while she will also run in the women’ s 4x100m relay team, whom also qualified for Nationals. Simpson also qualified in two events during the indoor season as well.

The senior from Calendon, Jamaica, will enter the NCAA Division II Championships tied for the fifth-fastest time in the 100m with an 11.65. Simpson will run in the 100m on Friday, May 23, at 7:10 p. m. which will be preceded by her participation in her team’ s 4x100m relay at 5:50 p. m.

The 4x100m relay team of Eden Williams, Simpson, Mariah Tolbert and Ifeoma Anwah will head into the Championships as the No. 11 seed, with a time of 46.30. Sixteen teams all together will run in the event.

Williams, Tolbert and Anwah are all just sophomores at UAH, while Simpson is the lone senior. Williams, Simpson and Tolbert qualified in the 4x100m relay last year as well, but were disqualified after missing the exchange in the final handoff.

Simpson will also compete in the women’ s 200m dash, entering the field with the 18th-fastest time. She owns school records in both the 100m and 200m and earned All-American honors during the indoor season.

Osteen headlines the NSU squad as the only Shark with an automatic qualifying time and has the eighth best overall time( 59.86) in the women’ s 400-meter hurdles. The prelim for her event begins at 7:40 p. m. on May 23 and finishes with the finals on May 25, at 7:20 p. m.

Also qualifying is the women’ s 4x100-meter relay team. The team is comprised of Osteen, Johniqua Stafford, Nicole Poole, and Ciona Williams. The team enters ninth overall, with a qualifying time of 46.10. The prelim for the event begins at 4:50 p. m. on May 23, with the finals taking place May 25, at 5:10 p. m.

Clayton State’ s Shannon Smith Named All-American

PUEBLO, COLO- Clayton State’ s Shannon Smith will return home as an All-American after her seventh-place finish at the NCAA national championships, which were hosted by Colorado State-Pueblo. In all, nine PBC athletes and relay teams represented the Peach Belt in the league’ s first season of outdoor track and field. Here is a school-by-school look at how they all performed.