Falcons Break School Record At 102nd Drake Relays

The Bowling Green State University track and field team celebrated a new school record on Thursday (April 28) in their first event at the 102nd annual Drake Relays, a multi-day meet held in Des Moines, Iowa at the home of this year's NCAA Championships.

In the 4x1600 meter relay, Barbara Powers began the race and was followed by Autumn Dettmann, Carly Wells and Heather Conger.  Together, the Falcon athletes completed the 6400 meter race in 20:31.38, breaking the previous record (set in 2005) by just over a half-second. 

The team finished ninth in a group of 15 teams, which included several schools from the Big Twelve and Big Ten Conferences.  The Falcons placed ahead of the other Mid-American Conference school in the race, Western Michigan, as well as Big Ten member Northwestern.

Later in the evening, Abby Koch 11th in a field of 26 runners participating in the 10,000 meter run.  Koch's produced a final time of 36:37.33, which is the best time for a Falcon in the event since 1999.

On Friday, Bowling Green competed in five different relays.

Felicia Jefferson, Jeanette Pettigrew, Allorian Horne and Erika Schmidt completed the 4x100 meter preliminaries in 48.02 seconds.  The same group, with Jefferson and Horne swapping places in the first and third leg, also ran in the 4x200 relay.  The team placed 12th overall and second in their heat when Schmidt crossed the finish line in 1:39.99.

Pettigrew and Jefferson were also involved in the 4x400 meter relay, and they were joined by Allison Weimer and Saisha Gailliard.  The group finished the race in 4:03.42, with Jefferson running the final leg.

Carly Wells, Autumn Dettmann and Heather Conger -- fresh off their record-breaking efforts on Thursday night -- led Friday's two longest relays for Bowling Green.  The trio were joined by Jeanette Pettigrew in the distance medley relay, and their time (11:53.32) produced a 12th place finish. 

The group, this time with Allison Weimer, again finished 12th when they raced in the 4x800 meter relay.  In that race, BGSU's last for the evening, lasted 9:10.16 for the Falcons.

In other action, Tatijana Jacobson tied for second with a leap of 1.63 meters in the long jump event at the Kip Janvrin Open.  The meet was held in Indianola, Iowa at Simpson College. 

Falcon throwers are also competing this weekend, on Friday and Saturday in the Ashland Alumni Open.

Results for the throwers are not yet available; they will be posted to BGSUFalcons.com as soon as they are received.