Women's Track and Field | 5/9/2015 8:57:00 AM

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Bethel University women's track and field team completed the opening day of the 2015 MIAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Friday and find themselves in solid position heading into the final day of competition.

"We got a lot of people through to the finals that we expected," said head coach Andrew Rock. "We also had a conference champion in the women's 10K and a few others that did well."

As Coach Rock alluded to, the distance events were particularly strong for the Royals. Leading the way in the distance events was newly crowned conference champion, Mollie Gillberg. Along with Gillberg, teammate Melody Walton also captured an eighth-place finish in the 10,000-meter run with a time of 38:36.35.

In addition, freshman Erin Alpers ran the best preliminary time in the 800-meter run with a season best performance of 2:15.12. Fellow freshman Annika Halverson also notched the second-best preliminary time in the 1500-meter run, finishing in 4:49.34.

In the sprints, the Royals started the day with a solid performance in the 400-meter relay and qualified for the Saturday final. Sophomore Jillian Krier, who led off the relay, also placed third in the 100-meter preliminaries with a time of 12.99 seconds. Fellow relay teammate and captain Paige Thielen went on to qualify for the finals of the 400-meter hurdles with a personal best time of 1:07.11.  

Sophomore Katie Dillie represented Bethel in the long jump with an eighth-place finish, marking a distance of 4.98 meters.  The Royals finished the day with a third-place finish in the 3200-meter relay, adding six points to the team total for the championships.

With just six events scored, the Royals currently sit in sixth-place amidst a bunched leaderboard.  Bethel will look to close out their conference season on Saturday as they travel back to Macalester College for the finals of each event.