Women's DMR States Its Case On Day One Of UW Invite

Friday, January 25

Seattle, WA

1:00 PM

University of Washington

UW Invitational

January 25, 2019 | Track & Field

By: UW Athletic Communications

UW Invitational
Friday-Saturday, Jan. 25-26
Dempsey Indoor

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SEATTLE - Washington's women's distance medley relay put itself firmly in the mix for NCAA Championship qualification tonight as the UW Invitational produced the four fastest times in the NCAA this year and all four broke the previous Meet Record. The quartet of Katie Rainsberger, Imani Apostol, Hannah Derby, and Lilli Burdon ran 11:00.35 tonight for the third-fastest time in school history to highlight the first of the two-day UW Invitational in the Dempsey. Day two picks back up at 10 a.m. on Saturday.

Going off of the times that qualified for NCAA Indoors last year, the Huskies would have been the No. 7 team qualifying into nationals, which takes the twelve fastest DMRs each year. That won't guarantee anything this season, but history is on their side and Director of Track & Field Maurica Powell was happy with the effort from the quartet tonight.

"We wanted to run eleven (minutes) flat tonight and we did that," said Powell. "We tried to really push the pace the whole way. When you run for time instead of for place you've got to get out and push it, so Katie took one for the team and pushed the pace on her leg, and Lilli then on the anchor, it started to slow and so she took the lead to push the pace again. That was the best I've seen Hannah Derby run and Imani was awesome. I thought they were tough and competed well, I hoped they would run 11 minutes and they ran 11 minutes."

Oklahoma State got the win in 10:55.93 and Boise State and BYU also broke eleven minutes as all four teams bettered the old meet record of 11:02.15 which was set by Oregon back in 2011.

The Husky men's DMR had a solid outing as well, with Talon Hull, Evan Mafilas, Devan Kirk and Mick Stanovsek taking second-place in a time of 9:37.15.

A couple more top-10 marks highlighted the opening day for the Dawgs. Sophomore Hannah Rusnak padded her pentathlon career-best by over a hundred points today, as she finished eighth overall with 3,665 points, highlighted by another strong 60m hurdles time of 8.48 seconds and a big PR in the high jump of 5-3 1/4.

Senior Onyie Chibuogwu had a weight throw PR for the second straight meet today as she was second in the invitational flight with a toss of 62-9 1/2.

In the sprints freshman Aaliyah Wilson was sixth in the 60m hurdles final in 8.72 seconds and Morganne Hill had a season-best in the prelim of 8.87. Assa Kaba (25.22) and Olivia Ribera (25.27) led the women's 200m dashes in ninth and tenth places, respectively.

Mafilas, prior to running on the DMR, lowered his indoor PR again in the 200-meters, taking third overall just .01 seconds out of first with a time of 21.67 seconds. Kemuel Santana was also fifth in 22.00, a PR by .01, Jason Palmer was seventh in an indoor career-best 22.07 and Khalil Winfrey finished ninth in 22.15.

The first 5,000-meters of the season went round the oval tonight, with Julius Diehr getting a new PR of 14:12.93, just two seconds out of the Husky top-10 list. Freshman Isaac Mohn was second in his heat with a time of 14:25.15 and Chase Equall ran 14:36.10. On the women's side, redshirt freshman Sarah Carter finished her first career 5k in 17:05.69.

Junior Annika Dayton was first in flight one of the women's pole vault clearing 12-8 today while Monica Cohen had an indoor PR of 12-2.