Cyclone women’s track and field finishes weekend strong in California and Texas

Senior Evelyne Guay runs in the Women’s Mile Finals during the Big 12 Track and Field Championship at Lied Rec Center on Feb. 24. Guy finished in fourth place with a time of 4:56.71.

Spencer Suckow

Personal records and season-best results were abundant for Iowa State’s women’s track and field team on Saturday.

Competing both in the Cardnial Classic in Palo Alto, California, and the Michael Johnson Invite in Waco, Texas, on Saturday, the Cyclone women continued what’s been a strong outdoor season to date.

Iowa State got things started at the Michael Johnson Invite with the hammer throw, where Tessa Krempel earned a personal record for the second straight week. Krempel finished fourth in the event with a throw of 175-foot-7.

Shortly after, Keiara Williams scored a first place finish for the Cyclones in the open division of the shot put with a season-best throw 46-feet-11 ¾. This performance was promptly followed by another personal record, this time from Emma Whigham in the 400-meter hurdles. Whigham finished with a time of 1:01.50, good for second place in her section.

A few hours later, Jhoanmy Luque’s 20-foot-7 ¾ jump in the long jump earned the Cyclones another first-place finish on the day. The mark was Luque’s best all-conditions finish of the outdoor season.

Following Luque’s win, the Cyclones got yet another personal record from one of their entries. This time, it was from Tasha Frazier, who tied her record time of 13.81 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles. Frazier’s finish was good for ninth place, and now ranks as the sixth-best mark in Iowa State history in the event.

Iowa State then finished out the Michael Johnson Invite on a high note, with three top-10 finishes in three events. In the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Kelly Naumann finished in seventh place with a time of 10:38.32.

Essence Henderson, meanwhile, scored a pair of third-place finishes with her performances in the shot put and discus. After a 51-foot-4 ½ throw in the shot put, Henderson set a personal record in the discus by seven feet with a best throw of 169-feet-4.

Over at the Cardinal Classic, the 1,500-meter run was the only event on the docket for the Iowa State women. Building off of a successful night on Friday, all of the entries for the Cyclones earned top 10 finishes.

Starting in section four, Gwynne Wright finished in fourth place with a season-best time of 4:27.27. Then, over in section three, Iowa State took home four of the top seven spots in the section.

The best of these finishes came from Larkin Chapman, who finished second with a time of 4:20.62. Chapman’s time was good for her second personal record in as many nights, and now ranks as fifth in Iowa State history in the 1,500-meter run.

Karly Ackley also earned a personal record and a third-place finish with her time of 4:22.83, while Erinn Stenman-Fahey and Evelyne Guay finished in sixth and seventh place, respectively, with times of 4:29.55 and 4:30.70.

Closing out the night for the Cyclone women was Jasmine Staebler in the 1,500-meter invite, where the junior finished in sixth-place with a time of 4:19.91. Staebler’s time fell just short of her personal record.

The Cyclone women will be back in action next week at the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa. Iowa State will begin competition starting on Friday, April 27.