Brooks Wins 100 Meter Race to lead Women's Track

Brooks Wins 100 Meter Race to lead Women's Track
Posted: Mar 18, 2022

BRADENTON, FL - The NC Wesleyan College women's track and field team competed at the Spring Break Invitational at IMG Academy in Florida on Friday.

Freshman sprinter Mariah Brooks led the Bishops placing 1st in the 100 meter dash in a school record time of 11.98 seconds to beat out 12 competitors. Brooks is rewriting the USA South record book as she ran the first sub 12-second 100 meter dash time in USA South Conference history in a time of 11.98 to take first place overall at the meet.

Brooks then finished 2nd in the 200 meters with a time of 25.5 seconds to fall by 0.7 seconds behind the leader but also break another USA South record.

Freshman Assata Sirleaf also ran in the 100 meters and placed 11th in 13.6 seconds for her personal record while she also placed 11th in the 200 meters in 28.7 seconds, her personal best.

Sophomore Teanna Bellamy also placed 6th in the 200 meters in a personal-best time of 27.4 seconds. Bellamy then ran in the 400 meters and placed 4th out of 8 with a time of 1:02.5. 

Then, in the 1500 meter run, Wesleyan was led by junior Kelsey Hutchison who ran a time of 5:46 to place 7th out of 12.

In the field events, the Lady Bishops were led by sophomore Sarah Waters in the javelin and freshman Christian Van Norden in the javelin and discus. Waters placed 3rd out of 6 in the javelin with a throw just over 20.3 meters falling by just 0.6 meters of 2nd place to an NAIA school. Van Norden then placed 6th in the Discus with a mark of 28.8 meters while she finished 4th in the javelin with a throw of 18.68 meters.

"Our team has done a lot of improvement the past few weeks," commented Coach Bill Dunn. "The men's and women's teams are really believing in themselves due to the continued hard work and dedication they are putting in to their craft."

The women will next compete on Saturday at the CNU Blue/Silver Challenge in Virginia.