Gopher Women Win Big Ten Track and Field Championships!

The Gopher women bring home Big Ten Title #4

It came down to the final race decided by just one one-hundredth of a second. A come from behind victory for the ages. But that victory for the Minnesota Golden Gophers 4×400 relay team and an anchor leg run by Abigial Schaaffe clinched the Big Ten Championships for the Gopher women for the fourth time in program history, and the first time since 2018. The men would finish in 7th place.

The events kicked off on Friday where the Gophers nonce again proved their dominance in the hammer throw events. Both Shelby Frank for the women and Angelos Mantzouranias for the men won the event. Frank had the two longest throws in the event and won her first outdoor title after several podium finishes.

Gopher freshman Anthonett Nabwe finished in fourth in the event as well. Mantzouranias, also a freshman dominated the men’s hammer throw. The Greek native set a meet record winning by more than seven meters over second place, as he turned in a mark of 75.15m (246-6) on his second throw of the event.

Minnesota earned another podium finish on Friday as Lexy Berger would finish in fourth place in the pole jump.

The Gophers added two more individual champions on Saturday. Zoie Dundon won the women’s 3000m steeplechase in dominating fashion with a time of 10:09.56, winning by more than 12 seconds, and Taylor Kreitinger placed fifth in 10:28.37. On the men’s side Charles Godfred would leap to victory in the men’s long jump. He had the longest effort of the prelims at 7.70m, he then launched past that mark in his fourth attempt and leaped 7.94m in the finals for the win.

Several other Gophers had top performances. Nabwe came back after her fourth place hammer throw and would take silver in the shot put with a school record throw of 17.43m. Autumn Glover would finish in third place in the heptathlon with a personal-best score of 5,377, which ranks fifth in program history. Alliyah McNeil added a 6th place finish in the high jump.

Sunday was moving day, and the Gophers did just that showcasing their speed in the track events to move up the leaderboard. The Gopher women started off the day with a third place finish in the 4×100 meter relay from Odell Frye, Victory Godah, Zariyah Black, and McNeil in 44.39 seconds. Frye and Godah came back in the 100 meters individual finals rand earned a second and a third place finish, Frye ran 11.20 seconds, the second fastest in team history, and Godah was close behind in 11.27 seconds, the No. 4 time for the program. The duo would do it again in the 200 meters when Godah (23.154 seconds) and Frye (23.158 seconds) placed third and fourth. The two each set a personal best and were separated by a fraction of a second and also ran the No. 2 and No. 3 fastest times in program history. Erin Reidy would run 4:15.42, a new personal best, and the second-fastest time in school history to earn a silver medal in the 1500 meters. Maja Maunsbach and Black would finish in third and fifth place in the 100 meter hurdles with times at 13.33 and 13.40 seconds respectively. Brooke Jaworski ran the 800 meters in 2:05.58 for a fourth-place finish. Diarra Sow and Brooke Moore added sixth and seventh place finishes in the triple jump while Schaaffe and Dyandra Gray placed seventh and ninth, respectively, during the finals of the 400m hurdles in 58.82 seconds and 59.53 seconds.

It all came down to the final event, the women’s 4×400 relay. Minnesota was in first place in the team event, but needed a top finish to clinch the title. Jayla Campbell, Janielle Josephs, Jaworski, Schaaffe would take home the gold when Scfaaffe chased down an Ohio State runner to win at the wire by 0.01 seconds and clinch the team title for the Gophers!

When the Gopher men couldn’t keep pace with the women, they still had some great individual finishes on Sunday. Minnesota brought home a pair of individual titles as Devin Augustine earned the fastest man in the conference honors by tying a meet record with a 10.05 performance in the 100 meters.

The Gophers second individual title came from Jak Urlacher who took home the men’s pole vault with a personal-best 5.51m vault. His mark tied the fourth best in program history.

The Gophers got a 3rd place finish in the 4×100 meter relay a third-place performance in the 4x100m relay as Godfred, Augustine, Finn Schirmer, and Gary Afram crossed the finish line in 39.50 seconds, the No. 3 time in school history. Augustine would add an individual third place finish in the 200m in a time of 20.17 seconds. Eli Hoeft ran the 1500m in 3:45.12 to land in fourth place. Freshman Ahmed Khadar ran the 400 m hurdles in 52.65 seconds to place fifth. The Gophers added a pair of 8th place finishes from Christian Martin in the 110m hurdles and Ramy Ayoub in the 400 meters as well.

The Gophers will next hit the track from May 22-25 when it heads to Fayetteville, Ark., for the 2024 NCAA West Regional hosted by the University of Arkansas at John McDonnell Field. Congrats to all the Gophers medalists.