Indiana Tech’s Depth Overcomes Five Wins By Huntington (Ind.) Freshman Addy Wiley To Maintain NAIA Title
By David Woods for DyeStat
Juanita Webster-Freeman is a veritable one-woman track and field team. She did her part, but so did her teammates at Indiana Tech, which won a third successive NAIA Indoor championship Saturday at Brookings, S.D.
Webster-Freeman set an NAIA record in the pentathlon and scored in four other events for 31 team points. Indiana Tech finished with 85.
Coach Doug Edgar said 20 of Indiana Tech’s 23 entries earned All-America status.
“Lots of women sacrificed personal performance to score more points for the team,” he posted on Twitter.
Huntington (Ind.) was second with 64 points, 42.5 from an unprecedented distance quintuple by freshman Addy Wiley. She won the 600 meters, 800, mile and 3,000, and she anchored the Foresters to victory in the distance medley relay.
Huntington was bidding for a second championship in four years. A plaintiff in a civil lawsuit filed against Huntington has stated the NAIA should strip the Foresters of their 2020 title, alleging doping violations.
William Carey (Miss.), runner-up the previous three years, was third with 58. Life (Ga.) was fourth with 50.
The NAIA championship was the 16th for Indiana Tech in men’s and women’s track and field, all since 2013.
Webster-Freeman scored 4,258 points in Thursday’s pentathlon. She broke the NAIA record of 4,194 set by Oklahoma Baptist’s Akela Jones in 2014.
“All these five events, I’ve wanted to just be calm and collected and just feel the energy of nationals,” she said.
In other events, she was third in the 60-meter hurdles (8.48) and shot put (46-10.25/14.28m), fourth in the high jump (5-7/1.70m) and tied for fourth in the long jump (18-8.5/5.70m). Webster-Freeman was defending champion in the high jump.
“I honestly felt like myself again,” she said.
Webster-Freeman, 26, of Redlands, Calif., is a former California junior college champion and was eighth in the heptathlon at the 2021 Olympic Trials. She has become an inspirational figure, elaborating publicly about her Asperger’s diagnosis.
The 19-year-old Wiley has been on an elite stage, too. She set a national high school record for 1,600 meters, finished fifth in the 1,500 at the under-20 World Championships and was fourth in the 1,500 two weeks ago at the USATF Indoor Championships.
In a four-hour span, Wiley’s wins, in order, were: mile, 4:48.04; 600, 1:29.47 (breaking her own…
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