Michigan
Big Ten Indoor Championships
Wolverine Women Ready to Challenge for Big Ten Glory
2/23/2022 2:34:00 PM | Women's Track & Field
THIS WEEK
Fri-Sat., Feb. 25-26 -- Big Ten Indoor Championships (Geneva, Ohio / SPIRE Institute)
TV: B1G+ | Meet Central | Live Results
Friday, Feb. 25 -- 10:50 a.m. ET | Live Streams: Track / Field
Saturday, Feb. 26 -- 1 p.m. ET | Live Streams: Track / Field
• When to Watch the Wolverines (PDF)
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ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Spearheaded by a strong corps of returning champions, All-Americans and past scorers, the University of Michigan women's track and field team will challenge for team and individual glory at the 2022 Big Ten Indoor Championships to be held Friday and Saturday (Feb. 25-26) at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio.
Looking to build on last year's runner-up performance and return to the top of the team podium for the first time since 2016, the Wolverines enter with a top-heavy but balanced roster that features defending champions Ziyah Holman and Jessica Mercier, returning champion Aurora Rynda, and the top-seeded distance medley relay.
They are chief among a roster that has at least one Wolverine ranked top-five in the conference in eight of the 18 events on the championship program, and top-10 in an additional six events.
Final entries are not due until Wednesday afternoon and specific event assignments will not be made public until after the deadline has passed, but expected to join those returning champions in some capacity are multiple-time Big Ten medalist and All-American Ericka VanderLende; multiple-time conference scorer Alice Hill; the conference's top pole vault trio in Mercier, Mia Manson and Brooke Tjerrild; the double-threat sprints/jumps duo of Ameia Wilson and Hannah Waller; impact newcomers Aasia Laurencin, BreeAna Bates and Riley Ammenhauser; and shot putter Amanda Schaare, among others.
Though the Wolverines are currently sixth in the pre-meet Track and Field Rating Index (TFRI) from the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA), they are projected to be in what may shape up to be a seven-way battle for the top spots in the conference.
The competition will begin at 10:50 a.m. ET Friday with the start of the five-event pentathlon.
Field event action is set to kick off in a big way with the pole vault and shot put at 11:30 a.m., followed by the long jump at 4:45 p.m.
Day one action on the track, featuring mostly preliminary qualifying races until the evening, will begin just after noon. The evening will cap off with finals on the oval in the 3,000-meter and distance medley relay races at 5:50 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., respectively.
The second-and-final day is scheduled for an 1 p.m. start with the lone Michigan field event on the day in the triple jump.
Finals in the remaining track events begin shortly thereafter for the women at 1:20 p.m. Michigan will look to score points in the mile, 400 meters, 60 meters, 800 meters, 60-meter hurdles, 600 meters, 200 meters, 5,000 meters and the meet-finale 4x400 relay. The competition is expected to conclude by 4:35 p.m. with the team trophy to be presented as early as 4:50 p.m.
The team champion will be determined based on which school accumulates the most points from the results of each event on the track and in the field. Event champions will garner 10 points for their teams, with diminishing point values awarded to each successive finisher through eighth place. Runners-up will earn eight points, third-place finishers earn six, with one less point awarded for each place through eighth (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1).
The subscription B1G+ streaming services will carry two feeds of the championships on each of the two days, with one dedicated to track events and the other to field events. Live results will be available through Delta Timing, and updates will be posted throughout the day on the official social media channels of Michigan track and field.
News and 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 Holman (400 meters) and 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), Holman (distance medley relay), Lucy Petee (distance medley relay), Rynda (distance medley relay), VanderLende (cross country and indoor 5,000 meters)
• Returning Individual Big Ten Indoor Championships scorers: Holman (400 meters champion), Rynda (600 meters champion x2), VanderLende (3,000 meters x2, 5,000 meters), Mercier (pole vault champion & scorer '19), Hill (mile x3), Gall (800 meters '20), Waller (60 meters), Samantha Tran (3,000 meters), Schaare (shot put), Mayanja (pentathlon)
• Current school record-holders: Holman (indoor 400 meters, outdoor 400 meters); Mercier (indoor and co-outdoor pole vault); Rynda (indoor 600 meters, indoor 800 meters); Hill (distance medley relay)
• Rynda enters the championships on a hot streak after breaking the school records at 800 meters (2:02.89) and 600 meters (1:27.05) and running a leg of the conference-leading distance medley relay on three successive weekends. She is the third-fastest woman in Big Ten indoor history at 800 meters, owns the fastest time ever run by a Big Ten woman on an international-standard 200-meter track at 600 meters, and has won conference titles in both events in her career.
• Holman is the conference's top woman at 400 meters this season at 52.95 and is third in the conference this year at 600 meters. Depending on which event she ultimately competes in, she could become the first repeat 400-meter champion since Penn State's Kiah Seymour in 2014-15 or win Michigan's third 600-meter title in the past four years.
• Mercier is the top performer this winter on what has quickly developed into one of the best trios of pole vaulters in Big Ten indoor history. She, Manson and Tjerrild became the highest-clearing combined trio in conference indoor history earlier this month at Chicago when Mercier cleared a school-record 4.36m (14-3.5), Manson topped the old school record at 4.26m (13-11.75) and Tjerrild made it over 4.16m (13-7.75). All three have cleared at least 4.20m at least once this season, and are angling to become the first trio of teammates to do it in the same competition in Big Ten indoor history.
• VanderLende is looking to add more Big Ten medals to her collection, and win her first Big Ten title. In her two years worth of postseasons on the track, she has racked up two silvers and two bronzes between indoors and outdoors, and she was the narrow conference runner-up in cross country this past fall. Her two silvers came at last year's indoor meet where she was runner-up at both 3,000 and 5,000 meters.
• Hill has scored at every Big Ten meet, indoors and outdoors, dating back to her sophomore year in 2019. She has finished sixth in the mile indoors in three-straight seasons, and has been a member of a winning distance medley relay team and two more runner-up squads. This year's DMR team is tops in the conference entering the competition.
• Michigan is as strong in the short sprints as it has been in some time, with contenders for big points both in the 60 meters and the 60-meter hurdles. In the latter, Laurencin is coming off a career-best 8.21 performance that ranks just 0.01 of a second behind the 2022 conference lead. In the former, Bates and Wilson have both run faster than 7.45 this season, and Waller has an additional such performance from last year's Big Ten Championships. All are within striking distance of Cindy Ofili's 7.37 school record.
• Wilson and Waller are also one of the best long jump duos in school history. Earlier this month in Chicago they became the first U-M teammates to surpass six meters (just under 20 feet) since the 2009 Big Ten Championships when Bettie Wade, Tiffany Ofili and Casey Taylor all met that standard.
Players Mentioned
