Track and field consists of many athletes all competing in a variety of different events. Some races are made up of teams competing in different relays as well as individual races.
Sophomore Beverly Harper competes in both. Last weekend in the team’s first outdoor race of the season Harper placed fourth in her race, the 800-meter race clocking in with a time of 2:18.59.
“This past meet was a great showing by every single one of our athletes, many PRs and just really, really great times and places as all we scored as a team of any Division 1 schools,” Harper said. “We put on a very, very high showing this first meet and it’s only gonna get better from there.”
Harper is a sophomore from Richland, Wisconsin majoring in health and physical education.
Harper’s main races are mid-distance races and relays. You wouldn’t know it, but Harper wasn’t always a runner, in fact she was a lifelong swimmer until her junior year of high school.
“I had never even considered running because I was a lifelong swimmer. I thought I was going to come to college to swim, never even considered running, and then my mom just convinced me to go out for track … and I absolutely loved it,” Harper said.
During the indoor part of the season, Harper was a part of the 4x300m relay team that set a new school record with a time of 2:44.41.
“That would be amazing if the four-by-four broke some school records or even just placed higher on the school’s top 10 list,” Harper said. “I know we also had a really great four-by-100 relay … they have a very, very high potential to break some records as well, so it’s gonna be a really exciting season.”
Harper’s relay team also took third place at the GLIAC championships.
Along with her relay team’s success, Harper has had some individual placements as well. In the indoor portion of the season, Harper came in first place during different meets including first place in the 400-meter dash at the Lake Michigan Open with a time of 59.68.
“I would just like to keep increasing my 800 time … as a team, I mean. I love team goals and because of track really, even though we all have individual pieces, we are a team and we travel as a team. We compete as a team, and everybody scores points that contribute to the team goal of ultimately winning the conference,” Harper said.
With the regular season ending, later this month lies GLIAC and NCAA championships where hopefully Northern Michigan University will be well represented in multiple events.
“Winning conference would be the ultimate goal of everything, and then just have as many athletes on the team qualify for nationals … would just be amazing,” Harper said.
Coming up Harper and the rest of the track and field team are heading down to East Lansing to compete in the Spartan Invite. The meet will take place on Friday April 5.
