Maryville, Missouri & Vermillion, South Dakota – The Omaha track & field team split the weekend by competing in a pair of invitationals.

On Friday, Sophomore Taylor Ramaekers competed in the pentathlon at Northwest Missouri State. Ramaekers tied her lifetime best of 5'3" in the high jump, set an indoor best of 31' in the shot put and ran a 2:35.26 in the 800, shaving over two seconds off her fastest time. Her score of 3217 was an improvement of 79 points. 

On Saturday, the Mavericks competed at the South Dakota Alumni Invitational in Vermillion, South Daktoa. Highlights included:

60m
Carrie Simonson finished second with a time of 7.87. 
Nina Cuevas finished third with a college best time of 7.97. 
Brianna Fulton finished fourth with a time of 8.09. 

600m
Macy Persinger finished runner up with a PR of 1:42.19. 
Olivia Steffen finished just behind Persinger with a time of 1:43.87, good for fourth. 

800m
Gwen Steffen ran a college best time of 2:21.50 finishing sixth.
Danielle Howard ran a lifetime best of 2:29.27. 

Mile
Paige Blackford finished runner up with a PR time of 5:15.54.
Maya Nachtigal also ran a lifetime best time of 5:22.53 finishing fifth.
Finishing out the group lifetime bests, Madeline Yardley ran a time of 5.31.60. 

4x200m
Brianna Fulton, Ashley Ostrand, Nina Cuevas and Carrie Simonson finish third in the rarely run, but always fun 4x200m with a time of 1:49.48. 

High Jump
Sheridan Rodriguez finished fourth with a height of 5'3.75".
Kaitlin Hellbusch finished fifth with a jump of 5'1.75".

Long Jump
Carrie Simonson finished third with a jump of 17'8.25". 

Shot put
Mary Fennessy finished sixth with a throw of 42'9.5.

Weight throw
For the second meet in a row, Lori Vedder threw a lifetime best with a throw of 41'8.50".
Lucy Turner launched the weight 50'2.75" which was a 6 foot improvement on her previous best. That mark put her at a tie for seventh all-time in school history.
Moments later, Mary Fennessy passed Turner's throw with a lifetime best of her own. Fennessy's throw of 50'9.5" put her at seventh all-time. 

"We continue to have some great performances," said head coach Chris Richardson. "Anytime you can have not just one, but two top 10 performances in the same event, it's a good day. The other season and lifetime bests keep adding up which we hope is building confidence.  For those who haven't quite hit their stride yet, it's important to learn from the negatives, but be motivated by the positives. If we only focus on what's going wrong, we'll never see what we're doing right."

The Mavericks will compete next Friday, February 11 and Saturday, February 12 at the SDSU Indoor Classic in Brookings, South Dakota.