Slippery Rock women’s indoor track and field put on a clinic at this year’s Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference (PSAC) Championships on Saturday and Sunday.
The Rock took Lehigh University by storm with four first-place finishes on day one followed by six on day two.
In addition to their second straight indoor track and field title, the White and Green brought home the Outstanding Track Athlete of the Meet award and the PSAC Champion Scholar award. Samantha Gilbert earned the former for her sprints and Regan Johnson earned the latter for having the highest grade point average of all meet competitors.
Day one
Samantha Gilbert took over the short sprints, accrued two finals qualifications and two SRU school records on Saturday. The records came in the form of her 7.5 second 60-meter dash and 25.1 second 200-meter dash, both of which were good for first place in the preliminary sprints.
Gilbert was followed in both sprints by Johnson, who finished the 60-meter run in fourth with a 7.77 second time and the 200-meter run in eighth at 25.73. Both times were also qualifying scores for finals.
Jianna Long tallied the other individual first place on day one for the White and Green with her 58.48 second 400-meter dash that qualified her for finals as well.
The Rock’s star-studded distance medley relay unit marked their other victory when they won the relay finals, earning 10 points for SRU and All-PSAC honors. The team consisted of Jennifer Cichra, Annasophia Stauffer, Tatiana Holt and Anna Igims.
Chaley Younkin’s career best 9.05 second time in the 60-meter hurdles earned her The Rock’s last finals qualification.
Ruthie Hughes, Allie Taylor and Savannah Schneck added All-PSAC performances to SRU’s strong first day for their performances in the finals of the 5,000-meter run, pole vault and weight throw respectively. The trio combined to add 20 points to The Rock’s overall score in these events.
Grace Parrett, Aleks Brozeski, Baylee Blauser and Maddy Miller all contributed at least two points to the day one tally. Parrett’s points came from a sixth-place finish in the pole vault finals, Brozeski and Blauser brought in five points total with sixth and seventh place results in the long jump finals, and Miller added two points for finishing seventh in the pentathlon.
Day two
The second day brought even more success. Gilbert once again claimed first in the 60-meter dash and 200-meter dash, earning 20 points and two All-PSAC honors in the process. Her 200-meter time was once again record-breaking, as the graduate student blazed past her record-time from the day before and finished in 24.84 seconds. She crossed the line more than three-tenths of a second ahead of second place.
Johnson followed her up in both events for a second time, grabbing sixth and eighth place respectively while bringing in four points across the two events.
Igims once again displayed her long-distance dominance by claiming first in the mile run and the 3,000-meter run. Both were All-PSAC times.
Hughes was not far behind in either event, and the duo brought in 34 points in those two events alone.
Long improved her 400-meter dash time in the finals and earned 10 points and All-PSAC honors as well.
Schneck added The Rock’s last first place of day two with a 10-point, All-PSAC, NCAA provisional 13.82-meter shot put mark. The White and Green had three other scorers in the shot put finals with Becca Martin finishing third, Olivia Heckman fourth and Autumn Stewart fifth. Martin also earned All-PSAC honors for her 13.28-meter distance. The group accrued a stunning 24 points in the event.
Slippery Rock had multiple scorers in the high jump and triple jump finals as well. Cassidy Davis and Paige Griffith combined for six points in the former event, while Brozeski and Blauser tallied five points in the latter.
Younkin narrowly missed matching her career-best 60-meter hurdle time in the finals after finishing in fourth place at 9.06 seconds. The finish added on five points.
The White and Green’s remaining five points came from Gilbert, Stauffer, Long and Lydia Reed’s fourth place 4×400-meter relay finish.
The Rock’s 153 points across 17 scored events marked the only triple digit finish of any team. Shippensburg University came in second place at 90.50 points, followed closely by East Stroudsburg University.
SRU’s 2025 score showed an improvement over their indoor track and field title from a year ago when they tallied 136 points.
The championship victory marked a successful end for most of The Rock’s indoor track and field athletes, though those with NCAA-qualifying finishes have a shot to continue on to the NCAA Division II National Championships starting on March 13 and ending on March 15.
The athletes headed to nationals will be revealed on Tuesday. The Fall Creek Pavilion in Indianapolis, Ind. will host the women’s and men’s indoor track and field National Championships.
