ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (UNLVrebels.com) – Coming off a win in the high jump on day two of the Mountain West Indoor Track & Field Championships yesterday, the UNLV track & field team set their desires even higher as they entered the final day of the championships on Saturday. The Rebels did just that, finding points for the team total from six student-athletes on the roster.
The day's highlight came from
Kennedi Porter, picking up the Scarlet & Gray's second individual title over the weekend with a win in the women's 200m. Coming into the meet as the no. 1-seed in the event, she tore through the competition by dropping .26 seconds in the event from her prelim time just a day before. Her final time of 23.07 included much more than just a win, tearing down a school record from 2002 by the recently-announced Mountain West 25th Team Michele Davis.
Alongside Porter were another pair of key contributors to the Rebels' final score in the 200m,
Shakeira Bowra and
AnnaKay Maitland each landing a spot within the event's top eight. The former crossed the finish line at sixth place overall in the meet, the latter listed right behind her at the seventh-place spot.
UNLV also found plenty of success across other sprinting events, Porter and Bowra each landing within the conference's top-five competitors in the women's 60m. The Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., native picked up her second medal of the day by landing as the event's runner up, tying her prelim time (her fastest time in her career) from yesterday's preliminary session on a 7.29 mark. In the fifth-place spot after the prelims session, the St. Catherine, Jamaica, native moved up one more spot in finals to round out the top-four finishers at fourth place in the event.
The Rebels had two more scorers in the meet,
Jaydea Carter picking up a fourth-place finish for the team in the women's 60m hurdles. Senior
Endya Scott rounded out her individual events on the weekend with a top-eight finish of her own in the women's 400m, her first top-eight finish during the indoor season with the Rebels since transferring to UNLV in 2022. She finished seventh in the event.
The Scarlet & Gray picked up one more impressive performance in the women's shot put, junior
Roxene Simpson finishing among the top-10 competitors with a personal-best distance.
UNLV finished the 2024 Mountain West Indoor Track & Field Championships with 46 points overall, sixth among the conference's 11 programs. Their placing stretches beyond just the conference championships, finishing one place and five points ahead of UNR in the meet. The Rebels' placing over UNR awards the Scarlet & Gray three points in the Silver State Series, presented by America First Credit Union.
The Rebels will now wait for the NCAA DI Indoor Track & Field Championships invite list to see if any student-athletes are invited to the national championships, that list being released early next week. Outside of that, UNLV will move into the outdoor season, preparing for their first outdoor meet at the Arizona Spring Break Fiesta on Saturday, March 16. That meet will take place in Tucson, Ariz., the University of Arizona playing host.
FRIDAY
After a successful first day of the 2024 Mountain West Indoor Track & Field Championships yesterday, the UNLV track & field team excelled during Friday's session with several finals qualifiers and even a gold medal. The Rebels featured seven different qualifiers overall across four different events on day two of the championships.
The Scarlet & Gray were led by
Grace Cunningham, the junior soared through the high jump with a personal-best height of 1.80m (5-10.75). Cunningham cleared her winning height on her first attempt at the jump, earning that feat in three different heights. Her victory marked the first time a member of the UNLV squad since the 2017 indoor conference championships, Kaysee Pilgrim reaching second place overall.
The Rebels racked up three different student-athletes in the top eight of the women's 200m, sending
Shakeira Bowra,
AnnaKay Maitland and
Kennedi Porter into finals on Saturday. All three student-athletes earned personal-best times en route to their finishes, Porter slamming a 23.33 final time to move up to second overall in the UNLV all-time rankings. Maitland earned a sixth-place prelims time in the first heat of the event, crossing the line on a 23.91 final time. Rounding out the eighth spot on a 23.98 time was Bowra, picking up the personal record in the meet's second heat.
Porter and Bowra found themselves in a second top eight in the women's 60m, blasting their way through for a chance at some hardware on Saturday. The St. Catherine, Jamaica, native picked up a final time of 7.43 in the event for a personal best, a perfect two-for-two best times on the day. Porter dropped .09 seconds from her personal-best time, eclipsing her mark that she set two weeks ago at the Jarvis Scott Open at a 7.29.
Jaydea Carter emerged as a top-three competitor in the women's 60m hurdles, shooting through to a 8.35 final time in the event. The Hollywood, Fla., native would win the first heat of the event to auto-advance to Saturday's finals session, finishing with the third-fastest time in the meet's prelims.
Endya Scott was the final member of the UNLV roster to reach a qualifying spot for the upcoming Saturday session, earning a personal-best time in the women's 400m. Scott's 54.81 final time in the first heat of the event beat her previous best time that she originally set back at the 2023 Mountain West Indoor Championships, taking it down by over a second and a half overall.
The Rebels had several other student-athletes find success with personal-best marks on Friday's session, including
Kaelin Gowdy (400m),
Delaysia Allen (60m, 60m hurdles),
Sophia Alexander (60m, 200m),
Madelynn Wattles (weight throw),
Isabella Schrader (mile) and Carter (60m).
UNLV will continue the Mountain West Championships on Saturday, the final day of competition. The first running event is set to start at 10:10 a.m. PT, the women's triple jump leading the field events at 10:30 a.m. PT. A full schedule of events can be found
here, as well as results from the meet being posted on
UNLVrebels.com. For live updates on the Scarlet & Gray, check out their
X (formerly known as Twitter) and
Instagram social media accounts.
THURSDAY (DAY ONE)
The UNLV track & field team started the 2024 Mountain West Indoor Track & Field Championships on Thursday afternoon, the first evening of the three-day meet. The meet featured a handful of events on the first night, the Rebels only competing in the women's distance medley relay (DMR).
The Scarlet & Gray's DMR team consisted of
Isabella Schrader,
Kaelin Gowdy,
LaKyla Yazzie and
Natalia Ruiz. The squad finished among the top-eight teams at the championships in that event, rounding out the scoring teams with an eighth-place finish overall in the meet. The Rebels crossed the finish line at a final time of 12:00.62, earning the program their third time scoring in the event at the conference championships in the last four seasons.
Friday's session holds several events, the track including the mile, 60m hurdles, 400m, 60m, 800m, 200m prelim sessions. The field events will hold a handful of finals events, including the weight throw, long jump, high jump and pole vault. The first field event is scheduled to kick off at 12 p.m. PT, the opening running event for the day set with a start time of 12:30 p.m. PT.
A full schedule of events can be found
here, as well as results from the meet being posted on
UNLVrebels.com. For live updates on the Scarlet & Gray, check out their
X (formerly known as Twitter) and
Instagram social media accounts.
