Allison Hill placed ninth in the 60-meter hurdles in her NCAA Championship debut on March 11, 2016. (File photo by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College)
GRINNELL, Iowa -- The Bates women's track and field team narrowly placed out of the scoring in both of its events Friday at the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships, as junior Allison Hill placed ninth in the 60-meter hurdles and the distance medley relay team placed 11th.
With its most athletes in program history qualifying for nationals, Bates still has sophomore Sally Ceesay (Bronx, N.Y.) left to compete Saturday in the triple jump, beginning at 1:30 Central. Teams need top-eight event performances in order to score team points.
Making her NCAA Championship debut, Hill (Brunswick, Maine) lowered her own team record again, with her trial time of 8.84 seconds, 0.02 under her previous best. But with only the top eight out of 17 athletes advancing to Saturday's finals, Hill had the unfortunate distinction of placing ninth, 0.01 seconds behind eighth-place Jill Harmon of Illinois Wesleyan. Incredibly, all eight finalists in the event are seniors, giving Hill a bright outlook for her senior indoor season.
In the final event of the night, Bates finished the distance medley relay race in 12:03.81, 11th out of the 12 teams racing. Senior Isabelle Unger (Charlotte, Vt.) ran the leadoff leg of 1,200 meters, followed by junior Claire Markonic (Millerton, N.Y.) in the 400-meter leg, first-year Ayden Eickhoff (Corvallis, Mont.) in the 800-meter leg and junior Jessica Wilson (Cumberland, Maine) in the final 1,600-meter leg.
The Bobcats were as high as fourth near the beginning of the third leg but slipped into ninth during the final leg before being passed on the final lap by Oneonta. It is the fourth time in the past five years that Bates has been one of the 12 teams racing the DMR at the NCAA Championships.
The Bobcats also saw their former teammate Melanie Ehrenberg '16, place 14th in the women's pole vault. Bates' record holder in the vault is competing this season for Washington University in St. Louis, where she is continuing with a 3-2 engineering program.
