Dec. 13, 2008

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ALLENDALE, Mich. - Grand Valley State hosted the biggest track meet in the school's history on Saturday night and took first place in five events at the GVSU Holiday Open. More than 1100 people were in the new Laker Turf Building to watch the meet, where Dianna Noonan set a school record in the pole vault.

GVSU took four individual firsts, as well as a win in the mile relay with a time of 3:54.71. Katherine McCarthy (mile), Stephanie Ostrenga (800), Candice Wheat (hurdles) and Dianna Noonan (pole vault) all won their respective events.

In the 400-meter, Kayla Vallar crossed the finish line third with her time of 58.65 while Abbey Zandbergen was seventh at 1:00.43. The Lakers took the top three spots in the mile run, with McCarthy's time of 5:00.28 just beating out Monica Kinney's 5:00.33. Both McCarthy and Kinney provisionally qualified for NCAA Division II Indoor Nationals. Katie Alfredson came in third at 5:09.29. Ostrenga won the 800-meter by finishing the race in 2:18.45.

Megan Maceratini and Kelly Gibbons both finished in the top five in the 5000-meter run. Maceratini crossed the line second with a time of 16:51.93, which is an automatically qualifying time for the indoor nationals and the second-fastest time in Division II since 2006, behind only GVSU alumnus Mandi Zemba. Gibbons' time of 17:29.51 was good enough for fifth place and hit the provisionally qualifying mark for indoor nationals. Wheat bested the field in the 60-meter hurdles and automatically qualified for the national meet with a time of 8.59 seconds.

In the field events, Noonan's school-record vault of 12'11.5" took first place in the pole vault, while Maegan Doyen claimed fourth in the high jump by clearing 5'3.75". Amber Triner also took third in the pentathlon with a score of 2980, where her 60-meter hurdles time of 8.98 provisionally qualified her for nationals.