Cedarville University Yellow Jackets

May 10, 2022

This past Wednesday-Friday was the G-MAC Championship meet in Owensboro, Kentucky! This means the season is finally over for most of the team. It was a long ride and we’re going to miss the seniors for sure, but it was good to have everyone together for one last time. We stayed at the nice hotel that we stayed at last year which was a plus! It was right on the river and had the COOLEST playground right down river walk (obviously we had to go there on Wednesday night).

The first day of the meet was Wednesday (the heptathlon girls and Haleigh our pole vaulter went) and it was nice weather. The rest of the team that only competed Thursday and Friday weren’t so fortunate. There were lightning delays on Thursday which set us back a bit, but thankfully the weather cooperated the rest of the time we were there minus rain showers here and there (it wouldn’t be outdoor track without them).

I’ll start out the meet highlights with mentioning Britain Musick who earned the school record in the women’s 100 meter hurdles. It was a huge PR for her and was awesome to watch. Bethany Sholl and Rachel Bredeson both ran the 5K and placed second and third respectively. Emily Walsh placed third in the 1,500 meters too! Not only did we compete well on the track, but we showed we do well in the classroom as well. Rachel was awarded with the Elite 25 Award which signified that she had the highest GPA among all athletes at the meet!

Overall, it was a great season. Some of us, including myself, are staying for a “last chance” meet. It should be a good way to wrap up the season! If I write about next week then I’ll see you then. If not, thanks for reading my blogs this year; it’s been a great season full of a lot of great accomplishments by our girls and it’s been fun to write about them all.

Thanks!

Alexandra


April 25, 2022

Finally, the team caught a break from the weather and had a beautiful Friday and Saturday for competition! We split up again this past week where some athletes went to the Ohio State University to compete in the Jesse Owens Classic meet, and some others headed to Otterbein for their Twilight Invitational. I personally was at the Ohio State meet, but I’ll be covering the details of both meets. Let’s start with the Otterbein meet on Friday. The girls were able to take home the meet victory with the most points scored! There were a lot of winners in their events like Remington Hobson in the steeple, Emily Walsh in the 800 meters, and Katie Hadley in the triple jump.

On the other hand, I went to Jesse Owens on Friday and Saturday to compete in the 100 meters and the 200 meters. The girls who went did really well - like Rachel Bredeson in the steeple, Hannah Willow in the high jump, and Sarah Himes in the discus. The most exciting thing that happened this weekend was I was able to break the school record for the 100 meters! It was a beautiful day to run and I definitely feel blessed to have been able to run sub-12 seconds for the first time. Other exciting news is Bethany Sholl was also able to break the women’s 5K record with the first sub-17 minute time in school history. Congratulations Bethany!

This coming weekend, some of the team will compete at the Ashland Alumni Open while others take the week off. After that, it’s G-MAC already. Time flies, but we can’t wait!


April 18, 2022

Wow, what a windy weekend. It seems as though no matter where we travel, we can’t catch a break from the weather! Thankfully this past weekend at Huntington University in Indiana wasn’t too cold. The wind made it extremely difficult for the distance girls and jumpers to compete. Around every turn and straight up the runway for jumps, there were 20 mph gusts! Despite the wind, Katie Hadley took the win in the triple jump! We also had some other winners at Huntington as well. I was able to take first in the 100 meters and 200 meters, Lauren Willow won the 400 meter hurdles, Haleigh Eckert swept pole vault (indoors thankfully, otherwise that would have been super dangerous), and the girls 4 x 400 meter relay unit took first as well.

On the other hand, a few girls traveled to Bucknell University in Pennsylvania to compete. Four distance girls hit provisional marks! Naomi Herman, Alayna Ackley, and Hannah Rhem all did it in the 10K. Rachel Sweeney-Bredeson did it in the 3K Steeplechase. Overall it was a good weekend.

This Friday and Saturday the team splits up again to either compete at Otterbein University, Jesse Owens at Ohio State University, or both!


April 11, 2022

This past weekend the team split up over three different meets. A lot of the distance girls competed in Cleveland, TN at the Lee University Flames Invitational. Even though it was really cold and rainy, the team was able to find great success yet again! Rachel Sweeney-Bredeson and Bethany Sholl set records in their respective events: the 5K for Rachel and the 10K for Bethany. They both hit NCAA DII provisional qualifying standards which is so exciting.

Some of the sprinters, including myself, went to Indiana Tech on Monday instead. Although it did rain, it was a bit warmer than the weather was on Friday and Saturday at Lee. Our amazing hurdler Britain Musick earned another spot on the CU Top 10 list with a great run in the 100 meter hurdles.

Lastly, our two multi-event girls, Bryn Mozzi and Annie Alexander, went to Kentucky to get some marks for the G-MAC standards.


April 4, 2022

Thankfully, this past weekend was a bit warmer down at the Western Kentucky Relays! It was a really good weekend for a lot of the girls. The meet started on Friday where only the 5K girls and jumpers competed so they headed down to Bowling Green, KY on Thursday. The rest of the team competed only on Saturday, so we had a five-hour drive on Friday night.

The big “wow” of the trip (besides how well we competed) was the hotel we got to stay in! It had balconies all the way around and it was fun to see everyone on all the different floors. It’s a blessing that we got to stay in such a nice place. Even though the meet was competitive, we had some winners in the distance squad and some Top 10 Cedarville all-time marks in the sprints! It was a good day for personal bests. I am biased toward the sprints, since that is my thing, so I just wanted to share that we put together a 4 x 100 meter relay for the first time in a while and it went really well. The three girls who ran with me (Britain, Haleigh, and Caroline) had never run a 4x1 before and they did so well so kudos to them!

We are looking forward to some of the team to head to Tennessee this Thursday for a Friday and Saturday meet for the Lee Flames Invitational. Hopefully the weather holds up.


March 29, 2022

 

Last Saturday was the first official meet of the 2022 outdoor season. It was by far the coldest meet I have ever been to, and a lot of my teammates agreed! With the temperatures in the high 20's and low 30's with high wind and snow, the running, jumping and throwing conditions were less than ideal to say the least. Although the elements weren’t in our favor, our girls were tough and ran, jumped, and threw in it all (pole vault was fortunate enough to be moved inside – lucky girls). A few standout performances included Naomi Herman winning the 10K and Bethany Sholl winning the 5K. These girls put up some great times despite the cold weather. Two runner-ups included Haleigh Eckert in pole vault and Sarah Himes in discus.

We head to Western Kentucky this upcoming weekend to hopefully compete in some warmer weather!


February 28, 2022

Hooray for a successful end to the ‘22 indoor season! This past weekend the team headed north to the University of Findlay to compete in the G-MAC Indoor Championship. We departed campus on Friday at around 10:30 a.m. to take the two hour drive to get there (except for the pentathlon girls who got ready to go around 6 a.m. in the morning). Friday was the first day of competition. There were a lot of prelims for the sprints, but one highlight was the womens’ DMR (distance medley relay) was on Friday. Our girls ran an amazing time in that and took home gold for the team and a lot of points! Brynn also PR’d in her pentathlon score on Friday. When not competing, a lot of people did homework (our team is always great about staying on top of their work), layed around, watched the races, or napped. We went back to the hotel on Friday night, and some of us had fun at the pool before going to bed.

Saturday was finals day and it was an exciting time for the team! We either ran, jumped, vaulted, or watched and supported all three. During her 60 meter hurdle final, Britain Musick broke her own school record (again… go Britain!) with a provisional qualifying mark of 8.71 seconds. She took home the gold for that event. Nora Hagan and myself both ran in the 60 meter and 200 meter finals. Nora took home the bronze in the 60 and silver in the 200. I took bronze in the 200. Alayna Ackley took home the silver in the women’s 3K! Bethany Sholl and Naomi Herman medaled second and third respectively in the 5K, too. Overall there were many more Cedarville Top 10 marks…too many to name them all! But overall it was a great meet and we took third place as a team in the entire conference. Quite an accomplishment if you ask me. Oh, and coach Bo treated the team to Young’s ice cream on Saturday night when we returned to campus. Not a bad way to wrap up the indoor season if you ask me!

Until outdoor season.


February 21, 2022

This past Saturday was the team’s second meet at Wittenberg. It was nice to have another meet close to home! We were the first team to arrive and the last to leave (it was a long day). Even though it was long, it was a very successful meet. There are a few people that didn’t get to compete because of injury or taking a week off, but of the people that did compete, they ran really fast, jumped and vaulted really high and long, and threw very far! In all of our events we took top spots. A cool fact was that members of our team tied and broke the fieldhouse records at Wittenberg, which I think is something to be really proud of! Besides the tremendous success (check the meet recap for full details), there was a lot of napping in between events, homework done, cards played, and a coffee shop visited. We ate Fazoli’s for dinner at the meet which was also very good. We had a short trip back to campus around 8 o’clock and had the rest of the night to relax and unwind.

This week’s training will be super important because it’s the G-MAC Indoor Championship hosted by Findlay this upcoming weekend! We are all excited and trying to stay healthy and in good shape, because this is the biggest meet of the indoor season. Hopefully we will see a lot of girls up on the podium on Saturday!

Until next time!


February 14, 2022

Hello and welcome back to the blog!

This past weekend we had NCCAA’s at home! It was SUCH a good meet and the team had so much success – spoiler alert, we took home the title of meet champs! It felt really good to crowd around the banner and hold it with the team after a lot of hard work and practice. I can’t get into all of the details because it was a long two-day meet and we had a lot happen, but if you want all of the girl’s success details, check out the NCCAA meet recap report from February 11-12. 

Overall, the meet was great. We had a lot of opportunities to unite as a team and compete to the best of our abilities. There were PR’s and provisional marks! Some fun details were that we got ice cream at the end of the meet on Saturday, I saw a lot of girls praying together before running, and there was a great awards ceremony at the end. Seeing Cedarville at the top of the podium for events spanning running, vaulting, throwing and jumping was so impressive.

Another highlight was the cheer squad we gathered together to yell for the girls and guys team. We hit trash cans with sticks and yelled and it really hyped the teams up! It allowed for a really fast relay and we had so much fun with it. It was great to see the teams succeed and we can’t wait for more success at Wittenberg this upcoming Saturday! This will be our last meet before indoor G-MAC!

Until next time.


February 7, 2022

This past weekend we headed up to Ashland University for a two-day meet condensed into one day on Saturday. Because of the heavy snow storm that hit here Thursday through Friday, and hit even harder at Ashland, the Friday portion of the meet was canceled and all events were moved to Saturday. It was a long day for the team! The 5K group left on the early bus and everyone else followed at around 6:30 a.m.

This meet was called the Jud Logan Light Giver Opener because Ashland’s head coach Jud Logan passed away early this year. Our captains decided to do something special for the Ashland team because of their coach’s passing. We all wrote notes to the team and gave them a basket of snacks. It was a great thing to be a part of and the Ashland team really appreciated it.

Even though it was a long day and a huge meet, our team found great success! Britain Musick broke her own school record in the 60 meter hurdles and Emma Bailey broke the shot put record! Many other girls had PR’s and came up with DII provisional marks in their events. It was a good day to compete and we are really looking forward to having another home meet this weekend here in the Doden Field House. NCCAA Championship meet here we come!


January 31, 2022

Blog week three!

We had an amazing home meet this past Friday in the Doden Field House. The ladies performed very well to take first place by a landslide. We beat the second placing team by almost 200 points.

It was a busy time in the field house on Friday because a lot of us who didn’t run, jump, or throw were helping organize events and concessions. So many of our girls took first place at this meet. Since there are so many I can’t name them all, but check out the meet results for this past Friday, January 28th! It is exciting to see how much talent we have on our team!

A lot of girls on the team also hosted possible future athletes on the track team the night after the meet. It was fun to have the high schoolers with us and see them compete at the indoor meet we had for them. This upcoming Friday-Saturday we have a two-day meet at Ashland University (a very competitive school, the newest addition to our G-MAC).

Until next time!


January 23, 2022

We are back with another blog!

The women’s team competed in their first meet back from Christmas break. On Saturday, January 22, we headed up to Hillsdale, Michigan to compete in their indoor facility. It was quite the chilly day with a high of around 25 degrees in both Hillsdale and Cedarville! The first group sadly boarded the bus around 5:30 a.m. to travel north. I was part of this group (sigh). Most of us just slept in Hillsdale’s field house (which was much too cold to our dismay) and sat around when we got there until the second bus with the rest of the team arrived. The meet began with jumping and throwing events in which Cedarville took a big part in. Our girls did pretty well.

When the rest of the team arrived, we all warmed up together and then the running events officially began at 1 p.m. We thought this was going to be a very competitive meet, but it turned into a small tri-meet. We kept a good attitude and ran our best! There were a lot of yellow uniforms in each heat, so it’s safe to say that we probably won the meet. A highlight that sticks out in my mind was the women’s mile. All of our girls that ran that race did so well! 

The bus ride home was long and we were all tired from getting up early and traveling. Thankfully we stopped at Walmart for some goods. Overall it was a small meet and not quite what we were expecting, but we did our best and came up with a lot of points scored and a lot of events won.

This upcoming weekend is our home meet at 2:30 p.m.! And on Saturday, we help out with the high school meet hosted by Cedarville as well. Exciting things to come for the season!


January 19, 2022

Hello and welcome to the start of the women’s CUTF blog for the 2022 indoor season. My name is Alexandra Brizzi and I will be writing this year’s blog posts for the winter and spring seasons!

I am very excited to cover and share the amazing talents we have on the women’s team. Before we begin I’d like to introduce a little bit about myself. I am a sophomore short sprinter (60, 100, 200 meters). I’m from eastern Pennsylvania and I am an AYA Life Science Education major.

Our season started with an early meet back on December 3rd at the Grand Valley State Holiday Open. At this meet only the cross country girls competed. It was a great meet for the girls! We had four NCAA DII provisional qualifiers for the indoor 5K: Alayna Ackley, Rachel Sweeney-Bredeson, Bethany Sholl, and Naomi Herman.

On December 4th at the Wittenberg Opener, the women’s track & field team competed for their first indoor meet. The ladies took home first with some amazing performances by Nora Hagan, Sarah Himes, and Haleigh Eckert. Nora made a provisional qualifying mark with her school record time of 7.63! Sarah also broke her own school record in the weight throw by almost a foot. Haleigh won the pole vault for a great start to her season. Some other honorable mentions are Emma Bailey (runner-up in the shot put), myself (runner-up in the 60 meter dash), and Britain Musick (tied for fourth on CU’s all- time list in the 60 meter hurdles).

We are looking forward to a great meet at Hillsdale College on Saturday, January 22! The cross country and track & field team will combine their efforts for the rest of the indoor and outdoor seasons. We are looking forward to some PR’s, school records, and more qualifying marks for nationals in the near future.


Alexandra Brizzi is a sophomore sprinter from Bensalem, Pennsylvania. She is in her second season with the Lady Jackets and is a Dean's List student as a AYA life science education major.