MARION, Ind. – For the second straight year and third time in their last trip to the national meet, the UBC Thunderbirds are NAIA Women's Outdoor Track and Field champions.
Gaining more than enough team points in the final day of competition including
Katie Newlove winning the women's 5000 metres, the T-Birds finished with a total of 104 points, 33 ahead of the runners-up from William Carey.
The UBC men's team improved upon last year's third place finish earning second overall with 41 team points, 14 behind the repeat winners from Life University.
Winning the third title in UBC women's history puts the T-Birds in rare company as only four other schools have won more in the 42 year history of the championship.
"It just came from so many areas. We got points in jumps, we got points in sprints, combined events, and endurance which has always been our bread and butter," said UBC head coach
Laurier Primeau who was named Women's Coach of the Year for the third time. "Not dissimilar to what we talked about before the competition, we expected to score in all those things and, like I said beforehand, we dominated in the walks so it was just a full team effort across all those events."
While the women's title had been wrapped up heading into the final events of the day, the exclamation mark for UBC came in the 5000 metre final where
Katie Newlove won gold on the power of a 16:57.35, nearly a nine second margin of victory.
Marley Beckett – who finished fourth in the 10,000 metres on Friday – added another four team points as she crossed the line in fifth.
John Perrier took bronze in the men's 5000 which proved key to UBC's second place finish as Southeastern University finished the meet just two points behind.
In a good indicator for how positively the rest of the day would proceed, Friday's first race saw
Jamie Hennessey take bronze in the women's 3000 metre steeplechase. Her final event in the blue and gold gained six points to the team total with a time of 10:34.07.
The 1500 metres came up with the standard prominent UBC results again this year as sophomore
Holly MacGillivray claimed women's silver in 4:22.59 while
Spencer Hardy took fifth in the men's final with a time of 3:53.94.
Sophomore sprinter
Hanna Sobkowich ended up with multiple appearances on the awards podium as she finished fourth in the women's 100 metre final with an 11.77 and seventh in the 200 metres in 24.23.
The women's 800 metre final might have secured the T-Birds' title defence as both
Rachel Mortimer and
Holly MacGillivray claimed points finishing third and fifth, respectively.
What makes 2023's first and second place performances stand out from UBC's previous successes is the variety of events in which points were claimed. In years past, the T-Birds were very endurance heavy whereas both the men's and women's teams this year saw strong performances across the board.
"We're definitely well-rounded, and I think that is a testament to some phenomenal coaching across all our event areas," added Primeau. "I don't anticipate that changing so I just need to be able to recruit, get them some good athletes to work with and they do the rest. I'm super impressed all around and know that we had a lot of athletes here who are here for their first or second time who are progressing really well and who will be in scoring positions next year."
While the T-Bird men may have fallen short of their hopes of their first national title since 2019, the team not only improved their standing from 2022 but showed incredible promise for what's to come.
"The men's scoring seems to be more spread out among several universities so it's a little more of a battle. There are a lot more universities in the hunt and that's probably really healthy for the sport and those are challenges we're going to overcome. Not to say I'm not happy with second but I know we have a whole bunch of guys who are trying to figure out how we can win one of these things."
With the 2023 season officially complete, the T-Birds won't be resting for long in their pursuit of further excellence with a goal of returning to Marion, Indiana in the spring of 2024 with further banners in their hands.
FULL RESULTS
