Purdue Fort Wayne
The Summit League Indoor Championships Day 1
Crystina Martinez Wins 3,000 at Summit League Championships
2/27/2009 12:00:00 AM | Women's Track and Field
Feb. 27, 2009
Day 1 Summit League Championship Results
Sterling, IL -- The IPFW women's track & field team is currently in fifth place overall at the 2009 Summit League Indoor Championships, hosted by UMKC. Crystina Martinez continued her record-breaking indoor season by becoming the first Mastodon track & field runner to take home a first-place finish in an event, winning the 3,000-meter run by eight seconds.
IPFW's 20.5 points put them in fifth place overall, just ahead of Oakland (20), Western Illinois (11), and host UMKC (2). North Dakota State has a comfortable lead through the first day, with 74 points, as Oral Roberts (40), South Dakota State (38.5), and Southern Utah (28) round out the top four, respectively.
Leading the way for IPFW were the Martinez twins, Crystina and Crystal, who placed first and third, respectively, in the 3,000-meter run. Crystina, the 2008 Summit League Cross Country Runner of the Year, ran a time of 9:44.34, just over three seconds off of the school-record time that she ran a week ago at Purdue. Crystal's time of 9:57.46 was just three seconds away from second-place Semehar Tesfaye of North Dakota State, and just over a second off of her season-best time in the event. The first- and third-place finishes for IPFW gave the squad 16 of its 20.5 points.
Crystal became the first IPFW Mastodon runner to take top honors in an event at a conference T&F Championship, as there had been four runner-up finishes prior (Crystina in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter runs during outdoor last year, and Crystal in the 5,000 during indoor last season, and in the 3,000 steeple chase during outdoor).
Four more points for IPFW came from the quartet of Beth Hoekstra, Whitney Lane, Sarah Hutchings, and Felicia Mondry, as the group placed fifth in the distance medley relay, running the mixed relay (one leg each of the distances 400-, 800-, 1200-, and 1,600-meters) in a time of 12:29.95, just over eight seconds from the school record in the event.
The Mastodon's final points of the day came in the high jump, where Katy Moore leapt to a height of 4-feet, 10.25-inches (1.48 meters), tying for eighth, evenly splitting the eighth-place point total of one.
Sara Branam was the final first-day competitor for IPFW, as she placed 11th in the 20-pound weight throw, tossing the implement 37-10.75 (11.55 meters).
The `Dons have one more day of the Championships remaining in Sterling, Illinois.
~Dons~
