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The St. Catherine University track and field team couldn't have asked for a much better start to the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) Indoor Championships Friday. And thanks to strong relay and jump performances on day two, the Wildcats couldn't have asked for a much better finish Saturday at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota. 

As a team, the Wildcats recorded a 10th-place finish with a total of 23.3 points and were just 6.2 points behind Gustavus Adolphus College in ninth. This is the best finish for the program since 2011 when the Wildcats placed 10th with 40 points. 

The top individual performance came from Abigail Palmer (Pequot Lakes, Minn./Pequot Lakes) who finished sixth in the triple jump for her first career All-MIAC Honorable Mention finish. The sophomore headed into the event seeded ninth, but she qualified for finals with a mark of 10.45 meters (34-3.5) that also broke her own school record set earlier this season. Palmer matched that mark again in the finals to secure the Wildcats' final points of the meet. 
 
 

Seniors Sarah Manning (Page, Ariz./Page) and Makayla Skluzacek (Le Sueur, Minn./Le Sueur-Henderson) narrowly qualified for the high jump, but made the most of their final indoor conference meet scoring points for the Wildcats. Both matched their personal record (PR) marks in the event and posted season-best finishes. Manning cleared 1.55 meters (5-1) to record her second-consecutive seventh-place finish at the MIAC Championships. Skluzacek made her first appearance in the individual indoor event and cleared 1.50 (4-11) on her first attempt to finish tied for eighth. 
 
The Wildcats' other top performances came on both relays with the 4 x 200-meter squad with their eighth-place point-scoring performance. The squad of Brittany Moore (Maplewood, Minn./North St. Paul), Palmer, Megan Thoemke (White Bear Lake, Minn./Mahtomedi) and Shakeela Wells-Johnson (St. Paul, Minn./Hardin) dropped .20 seconds from their season-best time a week ago when they clocked in at 1:49.16. Their time is now No. 4 all-time at St. Kate's. 
 
 

Not only did the 4 x 200-meter squad put up a strong finish, but three of the four runners ended the meet on the track with another St. Kate's top-10 finish in the 4 x 400-meter relay. Moore, Marie Morrier (Hudson, N.H./Academy of Science and Design), Thoemke and Wells-Johnson raced to a 10th-place finishing time of 4:14.28 that ties for No. 10 all-time. 

The Wildcats also had three competitors in the distance events with senior Jenna McElroy (Champlin, Minn./Champlin Park) finishing the 3,000-meter run in 1:19.27, while Shannon Strickland (Rochester, Minn./Lourdes) and Courtney Kirkeide (Greenbush, Minn./Greenbush-Middle River) ran the 1,000-meter run in 3:13.01 and 3:15.16, respectively. 

The University of St. Thomas won its 16th-consecutive MIAC Indoor Track and Field Championship scoring 199.7 points which was 112.7 points better than Bethel University in second place. 

The Wildcats are scheduled to begin outdoor competition on April 11 at Hamline University at 10 a.m. in St. Paul. 

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