Marauders look to pull off upset at PSAC Outdoor Championships

Friday, May 3

Shippensburg, PA

10:00 AM

Millersville University

PSAC Outdoor Championships

Photo by: Mark Palczewski

Marauders look to pull off upset at PSAC Outdoor Championships

5/2/2024 2:31:00 PM | Women's Outdoor Track and Field

By: Connor Glunt, Athletic Communication Graduate Assistant

MILLERSVILLE, Pa. — As the spring season comes to a close, the Marauders look to finish the 2023-24 season strong at the PSAC Outdoor Championships.

After a third-place finish last season, head coach Andy Young says the top two teams to beat are still the host Shippensburg and the reigning champion Slippery Rock. Last year, the Marauders (113) finished just two points behind Shippensburg (115), but both trailed Slippery Rock, who totaled 140.5 points. Over the last nine outdoor championships, the Marauders have secured a top-three finish six times, including a championship in 2022, and have cleared 90 points six times as well.

Although the Marauders enter the meet as underdogs, Young sees the potential in his squad.

"One of the things with our team though, is that we try to exceed, and we usually do a good job of exceeding our seeding," Young said. "That happened last year where we were in the lead for a good portion of that meet, and we weren't supposed to be."

The Marauders qualified 28 athletes for the meet, headlined by national qualifier and reigning champion Darian Hauf in the pole vault and defending champion in the 400-meter dash, Aubrey Sydnor. If the Marauders are to make a push for the conference championship though, it will take a group effort on the track.

Primarily, the sprints events are the focus, as Millersville has solid representation at the upcoming meet. In the 100-meter dash, Hauf, Emma Elwell, Chanel Hercules, Arianna Kouakou, and Aurora Conrad will compete for the 'Ville, and Conrad and Elwell will also run in the 200-meter dash. Sydnor will be joined by Shelby Derkosh and Ashlyn Hickey in the 400-meter dash. In the hurdles, Sabela Zablackis, Lily LaBure, and Katelyn Murphy look to contend in the 100-meter hurdles, while Cora Heilman will compete in the 400-meter hurdles. The same group of five runners in the 100-meter dash will make up the Marauders 4x100-meter relay team, and a combination of Derkosh, Sydnor, Hickey, Elwell, Claire Coons, Mary Weiss, and Lindsay Solderitch will run the 4x400-meter relay.

"I think sprints is where we would need to steal the points," Young said. "That's where the majority of the points come from in the PSAC Championships, the sprint relays, the hurdles, the jumps. We're seeded OK in a couple of things, but right now aside from the 400-meter dash, we're not supposed to score any points really in anything but the short hurdles, the long jump, the relays, and the 400-meter dash. If we can exceed in that area, it could make a big difference."

As per usual, the Marauders are well represented in the throws events as well. The trio of Seya Trujillo, Sarah Hessler, and Maddy Downs are all expected to contend in the discus, hammer throw, and shot put. Hessler and Downs enter the discus as the one and two seeds respectively, and Trujillo is the third seed in the hammer throw while being just one of three athletes to have a mark exceeding 164-0. Chloe Enck is also making her first appearance at the PSAC Outdoor Championships in the hammer throw as well, and Mikaela Wolf will be throwing in the javelin.

"Right now, we're seeded really well in throws," Young said. "We have a good strong throws group; we expect that they'll do well like always in this meet."

In the pole vault, the event is led by Hauf, who stands at the top with a mark of 13-2 1/4. The gap between Hauf and the No. 2-seeded pole vaulter is a gap of 10 3/4 inches, the largest gap between any two seeds in the event. While all eyes are on Hauf, Megan Malecki is seeded in the top half of the event as well with a mark of 11-7 3/4. For those two, their performances have become standard near the top of leaderboards. Simply put, Young said "they are what they are," and he expects this weekend to be no different.

Millersville is hoping to grind out some points in the distance events as well. Young noted that it is a little bit more difficult to really break out in that area, but with runners like Morgan Janiuk, Hannah Sweda, Emily Massage, Bri Pollock, Sam Foster, and Solderitch, the Marauders can expect to get something out of that group.

Rounding out the meet is the jumps and the heptathlon. Hercules, a freshman, broke the program's indoor record in the long jump at the PSAC Indoor Championships with a mark of 18-3, breaking a 13-year-old record. She enters the meet with the fifth-best mark with a jump of 18-7 1/4. Fellow freshman Aubrey Bitner also will compete in the event, looking to build off her fifth-place finish in the Indoor Championships. In the triple jump, Danika Bolinsky is set to compete for Millersville, and Sabela Zablackis will look to earn points for the Marauders in the heptathlon.

The meet starts for Millersville with the heptathlon and hammer throw on Friday at 11 a.m., followed by the 10,000-meter run at 6:30 p.m.

Live results can be found HERE, and select events will be broadcasted as well.