Results

ST. PAUL, MINN. – It was a record day for the St. Catherine University track and field team in multiple ways. Fourteen different athletes set personal records (PR) while Shakeela Wells-Johnson (St. Paul, Minn. / Harding) set the school record in the 200 meter yard dash at the Concordia St. Paul Holst Invitational in St. Paul, Minnesota on Saturday.

Wells-Johnson solidified her place in the St. Kate's record books with the best performance of her career in the 200 meter dash. With the wind on her side, Wells-Johnson finished the dash in 26.28 seconds, narrowly setting the school record by .04. Her school record-breaking performance helped her finish thirteenth in a race that featured 62 total runners just .01 behind St. Thomas' Katie Murray.  

Wells-Johnson's spectacular day also included her performance in the 100 meter dash. The junior sprinter qualified for the finals with a 12.57 second run in the preliminary trail. Seeded with the seventh fastest time, Wells-Johnson went one to shave nearly .4 off her qualifying time to take third in the race with a season best performance at 12.18 seconds behind runners from the University of Minnesota-Duluth and St. Cloud State University. She also was the highest finisher from the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) as both Murray and Augsburg's Callie Jones finished over.30 seconds behind Wells-Johnson.

Rachel Hall (Mendota Heights, Minn.) continued her fantastic season by recording yet another PR and top-10 time. This time, though, it was in the 800 meter run. Hall finished third with a career best time of 2:17.45 in the race, which is now the third best time in St. Kate's history.

In addition to Wells-Johnson and Hall, 12 other Wildcats set PRs during the Holst Invitational. Stacey Wherley (Osceola, Wis. / Osceola) finished in the top-20 in the 800 meter run behind a career best time of 2:28.99 while her teammate Michelle Perri (Plymouth, Minn. / Osseo) also set a PR in the 800 behind a 2:40.78. Perri also recorded a PR in the 1500 meter run, finishing the race in 5:27.09.

Bryana Waage (Valencia, Calif. / Hart) was another St. Kate's distance runner to set a PR at the Holst Invitational.  The sophomore took eleventh in the 5000 meter run by finishing the race in 20:01.51.

Six sprinters ran either season best or career best times in the 100 meter dash. Senior Brittany Moore (Maplewood, Minn. / North St. Paul) took seventeenth in the race behind a season best run of 12.81 seconds. Tori Thompson (Rochester, Minn. / Mayo), Sydia Reeves (Vadnais Heights, Minn. / North St. Paul), Marie Morrier (Hudson, N.H. / Academy for Science and Design), Maita Lee (Little Canada, Minn. / Roseville) and Ici Kelley (Robbinsdale, Minn. / St. Louis Park) all set PRs in the sprint event as well.
Lee followed up her PR time of 14.95 in the 100 meter dash with a second career best performance in the 200 meter dash. She finished the sprint in 31.74 seconds, which was several tenths of a second faster than her previous PR.

The Wildcats were just as successful in the field events as they were on the track. Junior thrower Megan Pohlmann (Grey Eagle, Minn. / Long Prairie-Grey Eagle) followed up her school record-setting performance in the javelin throw last weekend with a career best performance in the hammer throw. She finished in the top half of the competition behind a PR throw of 39.86 meters.

Both Alyssa Besch (Apple Valley, Minn. / Eastview) and Courtney Kirkeide (Greenbush, Minn. / Greenbush-Middle River) had strong performances in the javelin throw. Besch took second by throwing 39.69 meters while Kirkeide took fourteenth behind a 28.50 meter throw. Kirkeide also took thirteenth in the 1500 meter race by finishing in 5:00.82.

Two other field athletes had career days at the Holst Invitational. Katelyn Byers-Carter (Bloomington, Minn. / Jefferson) finished tenth behind a career best throw of 10.85, and Johna Radke (Muskego, Wis. / Muskego) set one personal record and tied another. Radke tied her previous career best jump in the high jump event at 1.50 meters and set a new PR in the triple jump of 9.42 meters.

St. Kate's will compete in three meets on MIAC campuses in the upcoming weeks. They return to action next Friday to compete in St. Olaf's Manitou Classic before competing at Macalester and St. Thomas in the final two meets before the conference championships.