May 14, 2008

OXFORD, Ohio - The Miami University women's track team will travel to the Mid-American Conference Championships on the campus of Bowling Green State University this Thursday through Saturday.

The current RedHawks set eight personal bests at last season's MAC Outdoor Championships and will look to duplicate those results this weekend.

Margarita Pogorelov has the ability to score in both the 100 and 200-meter dash. She won the indoor 60-meter dash at the MAC Indoor Championships earlier this year. Pogorelov is seeded second in the 100 meters with a season-best of 11.78 and is seeded eighth in the 200 meters with a time of 24.64.

Kristina Bolterstein leads the RedHawk field athletes and is the top seed in the high jump. Her season-best height of 5-10 ¾ is the best in the MAC this season and puts her in position to add a conference outdoor title to her three indoor high jump championships. Katelyn Kelly is seeded fourth in the high jump with a season-best of 5-7.

In the heptathlon, Nicki Mitchell enters the championships as the No. 2 seed. She has a season-best score of 4706 which she tallied at the All-Ohio Championships on April 18 and 19. Mitchell as team-best performances in the long jump at 18-11 ¾ and triple jump at 37-2 ½.

Amanda Mirochna has had a great season so far in both the 800 and 1500-meters and will look to make a run at a MAC title in the 1500. Mirochna is seeded third with a time of 4:34.70 which she ran two weeks ago at Ohio State.

Laura Neufarth, the MAC indoor champion in the 5,000 meters and MAC individual cross country champion last fall, is the No. 3 seed in the 5,000 meters for the outdoor version. She ran 17:02.75 this season while teammate Rebekah Hollander enters the same event as the No. 6 seed with a season-best of 17:15.51.

Alexis Lape has the ability to place in the 400-meter hurdles as the No. 4 seed with a season-best of 60.86 and a personal best of 60.11. Andrea Tepe is seeded sixth in the same event with a time of 62.83.

DeLana Turner enters the 100-meter hurdles as the conference's fifth seed. She has a 14.04 seed time, which she ran at the Jesse Owens Track Classic on May 3.

Back in the field events, Britney Bernardoni enters the pole vault ranked seventh in the MAC. She has a best of 11-11 ¾.

Betsy Allen and Jessica DeWitt are both seeded seventh in the 400-meter dash and 3,000-meter steeplechase, respectively. Allen ran 56.52 in the 400 while DeWitt has a season-best of 11:26.17.

Katie Lanahan enters the 800 meters as the conference's 10th seed with a time of 2:16.29.

The RedHawk relay teams are seeded fourth and eighth, respectively, in the 4X400 and 4X100. Miami has best times of 3:48.43 in the 4X400 and 47.46 in the 4X100.

Miami finished seventh out of 12 teams at last year's championships with Akron entering this weekend as the defending team champion.

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