ALMA, Mich. – Hosting in inaugural MIAA Indoor Combined Events Championship presented by Collegiate Credit Union, inside the Andrus Family Fieldhouse on the Greg Hatcher Athletics Campus in Alma, Michigan on Monday and Tuesday, February 16th and 17th. The women wrapped up their portion of the events on Monday while the men will wrap up competition on Tuesday.
Alma rose up the podium all the way into the final event as Helena Snyder finished second overall in the field with a score of 3211, a new school record beating her previous best earlier in the season for the pentathlon. Snyder's score is also goof for 27th best in the country currently, just outside the cut line for in the Indoor National Championship. Teammate Lauren Brawt also competed in the pentathlon and finished fifth overall, putting two Scots in the top five. Looking into the events, Alma opened the day with the 60-meter hurdles where Snyder finished sixth and Brawt finished tenth, scoring 777 and 587, respectively. Next came the high jump where Snyder finished on top in first place with space clearing a mark of 1.64 meters and Brawt finished eighth with 1.37 meters. Snyder added another 783 points while Brawt added 481. Moving to the shot put, Brawt collected a fourth-place finish with a throw of 8.96 meters, adding 462 more points. Snyder was just behind in seventh place with a mark of 8.07, giving her an additional 404 points as well. Looking at the last field event, Brawt finished second in the long jump with a leap of 5.08 meters while Snyder jumped 4.92 meters for fifth place. Brawt scored 581 points while Snyder added 538 points after the event. In the final event of the day, Brawt was sitting in seventh and Snyder was sitting in third with the 800-meter run in front of them. Brawt came out flying and put up the best time of the day with a run of 2:22.88, just barely off the school record by five hundredths of a second. Snyder came in with the third best time of 2:28.74, scoring 709 points while Brawt collected 785.
Wrapping up the competition on Tuesday afternoon, February 17th, Alma's own Leland Edelyn and Brady Crake completed the Heptathlon with two new personal bests and a school record. Edelyn, competing in the event for the first time indoors, set a new school record with a total of 3908 points and Crake improved from his past time out, setting a new personal best of 3567 points. Looking into the events, Crake was the Scots best finisher in ninth for the 60 meters, scoring 662 points while Edelyn finished 11th and collected 625 points. In the long jump, Edelyn finished sixth and scored 531 points while Crake finished 12th scoring 445 points. Flipping to the shot put, Crake nabbed a sixth-place finish and was awarded 503 points while Edelyn finished tenth and scored 454 points. Wrapping up the final event of day one, Crake scored a seventh place finish in the high jump and received 488 points while Edelyn came in a tie for eighth and collected 464 points.
Moving to day two, both Edelyn and Crake finished 11th and 12th, respectively, in the 60 meter hurdles, each receiving 530 and 489 points. Looking at the last field event of the competition, both Alma athletes saw "PR's" in the pole vault as Edelyn was crowned the top spot with a vault of 3.85 meters, scoring 576 points, while Crake finished tied for sixth with a mark of 2.85 meters, scoring 321 points. In the final event of the competition, Edelyn added back-to-back first-place finishes as we was able to come from behind and squeeze past Calvin's Bob Horton for first with a time of 2:53.63, scoring 728 points. Crake improved from his personal best with a time of 3:00.52, adding another 659 points to his total.
At the end of the competition Edelyn finished seventh place overall while Crake finished tenth.
Alma will now look towards the Saginaw Valley State University Tune-Up as they prepare for the MIAA Indoor Field Day in two weeks. The SVSU Tune-Up will begin at 2:30 PM on Friday, February 20th.
