South Central Reporter

Blackburn Women Return to the Track to Open a New Era in History

The Blackburn women’s indoor track team competed in the Principia College Opener on Saturday, January 28, to open its indoor season and made history by becoming the first Blackburn track team ever to compete in the SLIAC era and the first to compete for Blackburn in thirty years. Blackburn was one of twenty-one teams to compete.

 

Blackburn had three women race on Saturday, including sophomore Olivia Leemon, freshman Michayne Weber, and senior multisport athlete, Autumn Wilson. Leemon competed in the mile run and turned in a solid time of 6:55.2, which included holding off a conference opponent from Eureka College that Leemon had not defeated in their cross country races against one another last fall. Both Weber and Wilson are slated to race the 400 meters this season but competed in the shorter 300 meters on Saturday where they ran strong times of 50.38 and 52.11, respectively.

Coach Al Sturgeon said, “With [sophomore] Keeleigh [Pilcher] injured, we only had three women available to race, but I was very proud of all three. Olivia’s strength is her consistency, but I was especially pleased to see her competitive side come out on Saturday! Autumn is an amazing leader on and off the track and raced well as expected, and I am excited to see how she performs at the full 400 next weekend. Michayne was the surprise of the day. She has tremendous speed, and she completely destroyed my expectations with an outstanding race. It is going to be fun to watch all three grow this season!”

Original source can be found here