NGU women’s track going into conference play
Whitley Bras, Staff Writer
Shekinah Wilder competing in the jump event. Photo courtesy of NGU Athletics
The women’s track team at North Greenville University has been improving and has gained talent that has benefited the outcome of their season. Conference play is right around the corner and the team is looking to do extremely well in several events.
The conference championship will be held next Friday and Saturday, April 27 and 28 at Southern Wesleyan University. The events will begin on Friday at 3 p.m. and end around 5 p.m. on Saturday. Preliminaries will take place on Friday and finals on Saturday.
When taking a look back at the accomplishments of the season and how well the season is going the head women’s track coach, Cameron Stober, gave some insight. Stober explained that the season is going really well and the team also had a good indoor season, finishing fourth for both the men’s and women’s indoor conference meet.
A huge accomplishment for the women’s track team was that Shekinah Wilder, a junior at NGU, was the first female to go to a national championship for the women’s track program. Wilder went to nationals for the triple jump and also had a great outdoor season. She has currently qualified to go to the outdoor championship along with Millie Klefsaas, a freshman.
When asked if the team has met the expectations for the season, coach Stober said, “Yes. I would definitely say so. We’ve had a really good year. I think a big accomplishment for us was Shekinah going to nationals. That was something that we’ve had multiple men go to the national meet but it was our first female ever, so that was huge.”
Stober went on to say that Klefsaas has come in as a freshman and established a lot of new records for her events and says that she did a great job. The team has seen a lot of people grow and come a long way since the beginning of the season or the beginning of their athletic careers at North Greenville.
Coach Stober is looking forward to seeing what they can accomplish at the conference meet and hopefully, the team can finish on the right foot.
When looking at the strengths of the team going into conference play, the team has overall positive potential that will hopefully come to fruition at the meet. One of the strong events for the team is the 400-meter group, which includes Leah Austin, Lillian Haines and Brittany Edwards. Other events that the team has strength in include the 400-meter hurdler with Emily Beisecker, the pole vault with Millie Klefsaas, who is leading in the conference and the women’s middle distance 800-meter with Kaleigh Roach and Jadyn Slaughter. The team overall is looking to score points in the jumping events.
Track members are able to qualify for nationals based on their marks from the season play and the top sixteen from each event are chosen. After conference meet, there will be last chance qualifier meets in order to qualify for nationals, which are held in late May.
Looking into goals for next season, Stober says that the team wants “always to improve. Always to get better.” He continues on by saying, “I would say that we’ve had a really good season this year but want to bring in more depth for next year for sure. I’d like for us to score more points in different events. As of right now, we don’t have anyone in the 100 or 200 and that’s something we want to change for next year.”
He went on to say that he basically wants to get deeper in the roster and be able to score more points in the conference meet and get more girls and guys to the national meet. He said that it was awesome that Shekinah Wilder can go and he wants to have one or two more go next year. So just to continue to get better.
Overall, the team is looking forward to the Conference meet on April 27 and 28 and they hope to be able to accomplish great things individually and as a team. Make sure to go out and support the NGU women’s track team as they compete in conference play at South Wesleyan University next weekend.
