Hope Christie's job was to help set the pace for teammates Whitney Olson and Jessica Watychowicz and she did a very good job, leading the way for UW-Parkside in winning the 1500m Run at the UW-Whitewater Drake Alternative Meet on Saturday.

Christie's time was 4:42.66 (last weekend at the Mt. SAC Relays. She earned a career best of 4:35.75 and she helped Olson to a 10-second improvement on her best.  Olson took second place with a time of 4:45.38.  Jessica Watychowicz also ran a 2-second career best in placing fourth with a time of 4:53.65.

Charlotte Smith scored a second place finish in the High Jump with a leap of 1.55m (5' 1") to round out the scoring for the UWP Women.

UW-Oshkosh won the meet with 207.5 points and the UWP Women placed seventh out of the 12 participating schools with 31 points.

COACH MIKE DE WITT COMMENTS ON THE MEET:

"We had some excellent racing with the middle distance group this weekend, every member of the group ran their best time ever and raced strong.  This group has been very patient with the training we have been doing and it was the first week that everyone was on the same page with both smart racing and very competitive efforts."  "The distance group also ran well and they were also on the same page, the difference being that no one ran a career best.  It was a little windy by the end of the meet, but this group has a big majority of underclass runners that are still learning about the 5000m on the track and what it takes to put together a full focused race.  They are running well, but they are also ready to run faster."

NOTE SCHEDULE CHANGES FOR THE COMING WEEKEND:

Friday the UWP Women will compete at the Benedictine University Twilight Meet in Lisle, IL, events begin at 3 PM and on Saturday the Men and Women will compete at the Winona State Warrior Invitational in Winona, MN where events get underway at 11 AM.