MANKATO, Minn. - It was a historic 48 hours for the Winona State University women's track and field team over the weekend, with the Warriors notching several record-breaking performances at the 2021-22 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) Indoor Track and Field Championships.
Shereen Vallabouy set a new NSIC record in the women's 400-meter race on Saturday, winning the event with a time of 54.94, while Warrior teammate
Brooklyn Schyvinck finished third at 56.41. Vallabouy's time displaced the old NSIC mark set in 2010 and represents the best-ever Winona State time in the 400 meters.
Vallabouy's championship finish was one of three Warrior first-place performances in the competition, as
Lindsay Cunningham won the women's 5000-meters on Friday evening and the WSU 4X400 meter relay team won their event by over three seconds. For
Kendall Zeman,
Maddy Pietz,
Brooklyn Schyvinck, and Vallabouy, the relay championship time of 3:51.40 was one of several top times the team has turned in this year and the group currently owns the second-fastest 4X400 relay time in NCAA Division II. Cunningham's 5,000-meter time of 16:33.71 represented a Winona State school record and the standout sophomore won the race by nearly 45 seconds over Minnesota-Duluth's Julia Nielson who finished second at 17:14.62.
Kendall Zeman was second in the women's 600 meters, clocking a time of 1:35.65 to finish as the runner-up in the event. In the women's 800-meter run,
Kaylee Beyer took third with a time of 2:14.19 a personal best for Beyer and second-best ever time in WSU history. Beyer also recorded a runner-up finish in the women's mile run with a time of 4:50.74.
Both
Brooklyn Schyvinck and
Michaela Pryor qualified for the women's 200-meter dash finals, with Schyvinck finishing sixth at 25.06 and Pryor eighth at 25.79.
As a team, Winona State finished fourth overall with 63 points, over 20 points ahead of fifth-place Minnesota-Duluth at 41. The host Minnesota State Mavericks took top team honors with 243 points overall.
Next up for several Winona State standouts will be the 2022 NCAA Division II Indoor Track and Field national championships to be held on Friday, March 11 and Saturday, March 12. The NCAA Championships will be host by Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas.
