Michigan
Rod McCravy Memorial
Wolverine Women Off to Kentucky, Indiana for First 2022 Road Tests
1/26/2022 3:14:00 PM | Women's Track & Field
THIS WEEK
Fri-Sat., Jan. 28-29 -- at Kentucky Rod McCravy Memorial (Lexington, Ky.), 10:45 a.m./9:30 a.m.
TV: SEC Network+ (Saturday only) | Live Results | Live Video | Meet Schedule
Fri-Sat., Jan. 28-29 -- at Indiana Relays (Bloomington, Ind.), 6:45 p.m./12:55 p.m.
Live Results | Meet Info
• When to Watch the Wolverines (PDF)
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan women's track and field team will venture beyond the confines of the world-class U-M Indoor Track Building for the first time this Friday and Saturday (Jan. 28-29) as the squad splits up for road trips to Indiana and Kentucky.
With the Big Ten Championships only a month away, the Wolverines will look to begin rounding into postseason form as the sprinters, jumpers and throwers compete at the Kentucky Rod McCravy Memorial and the distance runners race at the Indiana Relays.
A majority of the top athletes from all event groups will be in action in either Lexington or Bloomington, with this weekend expected to be one of two major weekends of regular-season competition remaining on the Wolverines' schedule ahead of the conference meet, Feb. 26-27 at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.
Michigan's speed and power student-athletes are likely in for their stiffest test of the season thus far at Kentucky, whose McCravy Memorial has become one of the nation's annual preeminent late-January competitions. In addition to being a mini-conference preview with the likes of Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, Ohio State, Purdue, Rutgers and Wisconsin all expected to compete, the field will also include such national contenders as host Kentucky, Baylor, Florida and Ole Miss.
Headlining the Wolverine crew in Kentucky will be reigning Big Ten champions Ziyah Holman (400 meters) and Jessica Mercier (pole vault), as well as 2022 standouts BreeAna Bates (60 and 200 meters), Aasia Laurencin (60-meter hurdles), Ameia Wilson (200 meters and long jump) and a deep pole vault crew with four-meter vaulters Brooke Tjerrild and Mia Manson, among others.
The meet will also be the 2022 pentathlon debuts of All-American transfer Nikki Stephens and returning Big Ten scorer Theresa Mayanja.
Michigan's distance corps will represent the Wolverines at Indiana, where they will get an early Big Ten test against host Indiana, Michigan State, Purdue and Wisconsin, as well as national contenders Butler, North Carolina, Ole Miss and Tennessee.
Multiple-time Big Ten champion Aurora Rynda will make her 2022 debut in her signature 800-meter event, and multiple-time Big Ten medalist and All-American Ericka VanderLende is expected to open up at 3,000 meters. Among the group competing are returning All-Americans or scorers in Lauren Fulcher (800 meters), Amber Gall (800 meters), Alice Hill (Mile), Jessi Larson (3,000 meters), Lucy Petee (800 meters, mile), Samantha Tran (mile) and Kayla Windemuller (800 meters, mile).
Full details on when to watch all of the Wolverine competitors at both competitions will be posted when schedules at both meets are finalized.
Saturday's competition at Kentucky will be streamed live online on the SEC Network+ digital platform, and live results for both Kentucky and Indiana will be available via Primetime Timing. Updates will also be posted throughout the weekend on the official @umichtrack social media channels.
Team Outlook & Notes
• Now under the guidance of Kevin Sullivan in his first year as the director of track and field/cross country for the University of Michigan, the Wolverine women are coming off of a runner-up finish at the 2021 edition of the Big Ten Indoor Championships. Returning from that squad are Big Ten champions Ziyah Holman (400 meters) and Jessica Mercier (pole vault), as well as double silver-medalist distance runner Ericka VanderLende and all of the members of the runner-up distance medley relay. Also returning after not competing last winter is two-time Big Ten 600-meter champion Aurora Rynda. In total, Michigan returns student-athletes who scored 59 of its 80 points.
• Returning All-Americans: Katelynne Hart (distance medley relay), Alice Hill (distance medley relay), Ziyah Holman (distance medley relay), Lucy Petee (distance medley relay), Rynda (distance medley relay), Ericka VanderLende (cross country and indoor 5,000 meters)
• Returning Individual Big Ten Indoor Championships scorers: Ziyah Holman (400 meters champion), Aurora Rynda (600 meters champion x2), Ericka VanderLende (3,000 meters x2, 5,000 meters), Jessica Mercier (pole vault champion & scorer '19), Alice Hill (mile x3), Amber Gall (800 meters '20), Hannah Waller (60 meters), Samantha Tran (3,000 meters), Amanda Schaare (shot put), Theresa Mayanja (pentathlon)
• Current school record-holders: Ziyah Holman (indoor 400 meters, indoor 600 meters, outdoor 400 meters); Jessica Mercier (outdoor pole vault); Alice Hill and Aurora Rynda (distance medley relay)
• After posting a quick 1:29.26 in her first 600-meter race of the year, Ziyah Holman is set to make her 2022 debut at the 400-meter distance at which she swept the 2021 indoor and outdoor Big Ten titles and holds the U-M indoor and outdoor school records. She debuted at 53.77 two weeks later at this time last year before going on to run 52.55 indoors and 51.41 outdoors en route to the NCAA Outdoor Championships and U.S. Olympic Trials.
• Aurora Rynda returns to action for the first time since opening the season with a quick 1:29.35 over 600 meters at the campaign-opening Wolverine Invitational in early January. She is slated to run the 800 meters in a collegiate setting since earning second-team All-America honors at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. She advanced to nationals after running a blistering 2:01.35 at the NCAA East Preliminaries.
• The University of Michigan women's pole vault crew will take its show on the road for the first time this winter, after the trio of Jessica Mercier, Brooke Tjerrild and Mia Manson combined for five four-meter-plus performances in the first three weekends of the season. History could be made at any moment with the trio. Mercier owns a share of the outdoor school record at 4.25m (13 feet, 11.25 inches) with current volunteer assistant Kiley (Tobel) Bastien; Tjerrild came within centimeters of making a new indoor school-record 4.27m (14-0) height last Saturday (Jan. 22); and Manson also cleared 4.25m at the 2021 Big Ten Outdoor Championships before the vault was disallowed for a rules infraction.
• Friday will mark the 2022 pentathlon debuts of both returning Big Ten scorer Theresa Mayanja and transfer Nikki Stephens, as well as the overall pentathlon debut for Clare McNamara. Stephens has posted a best of 4,003 points in her career at Florida, a total only four women in Michigan history have ever exceeded. Mayanja is No. 10 in school history at 3,662 points and finished sixth in the 2021 Big Ten pentathlon.
• Ziyah Holman is not the only Wolverine sprinter excelling this winter. Transfer Aasia Laurencin already has eclipsed her career best in the 60-meter hurdles in just two meets in an 8.30 win last Saturday (Jan. 23) and is No. 2 in the Big Ten this season. Bates has won all five of her races at either 60 meters or 200 meters this winter and is ranked top-10 in the conference in both events as a first-year collegian.
• Riley Ammenhauser made the most of her collegiate debut in the triple jump, as she leapt 12.46m (40 feet, 10.5 inches) to tie the U-M first-year record set by eventual school record-holder Casey Taylor in 2006.
• Ericka VanderLende ran back-to-back mile collegiate career bests to open up the season, and will look to blend in endurance with that speed as she runs her first 3,000-meter race of the season. She was the Big Ten runner-up at this distance in 2021 -- one of her three conference silver medals as a Wolverine -- and will look to improve on her best of 9:12.45. Among those joining her in the race is outdoor national 10,000-meter qualifier Jessi Larson, who will be making her long-delayed collegiate indoor debut after finishing top-100 for the fourth-place cross country team at the NCAA Championships in 2018.
Up Next
Fri-Sat., Feb. 4-5 -- at Meyo Invitational (South Bend, Ind.), TBA
Players Mentioned
