Christie-Galloway's, Moodry's golds lead Lopes to 3rd at WAC

Photo by: Nathan Peters

Christie-Galloway's, Moodry's golds lead Lopes to 3rd at WAC

5/13/2023 11:05:00 PM | Track and Field

GCU outperforms 10 of 12 conference competitors at outdoor meet in east Texas

NACOGDOCHES, Texas – The tradition of a strong Grand Canyon women's track and field program continued at the WAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships with a third-place finish Saturday at the 13-team meet.

GCU matched last year's WAC Championships scoring total of 98 points with a final-day effort led by gold-medal performances from senior hurdler Keira Christie-Galloway and junior runner Kelly Moodry. New Mexico State won the team title with 136 points in front of runner-up host Stephen F. Austin's 113 points.

Christie-Galloway entered the finals of the 100-meter high hurdles sharing the best preliminary time with New Mexico State's Aliayah Logan. But to win in the finals, Christie-Galloway passed her midway through the race and won in a GCU-record time of 13.01 seconds, seven-hundredths ahead of Logan.

"The performance of the meet has to be Kiwi's amazing victory time of 13.01," Lopes head coach Tom Flood said of Christie-Galloway, who was joined by an eighth-place finish in the race from sophomore teammate Amanda Thrue. "Not only is it another GCU school record, it's the No. 5 NCAA West Region time and No. 13 in NCAA."

Moody's victory came convincingly in the 800, where she led from start to finish to beat the runner-up by 3.6 seconds with a time of 2 minutes, 4.97 seconds. It marked the third consecutive year that the Lopes have won the event at the WAC Outdoor Championships after Alexa Hokanson won it in 2021 and 2022.

Moodry's time ranks 22nd in the West Region and came within less than a half-second of the WAC Championships record. Freshman teammate Kaitlyn Kaye took fifth place at 2:11.34.

"Comeback athlete of the year," Flood said of Moodry. "Kelly Moodry continues to get better every race and scared the WAC Championships meet record with a time of 2:04.97. Kaitlyn had a great double and will be fun to watch for years to come."

Kaye scored 10 points in all for the Lopes by also taking third in the 1,500 with a time of 4:28.61, with junior teammate Brooke Skoog finishing sixth at 4:31.23

Other than the 800, the event with the most GCU points was the triple jump with 13. Lopes junior Jazmine Scott went 41 feet, 10 1/4 inches to take second place and set a new school record. Sophomore teammate Taryn Burkett jumped 39 feet, 8 1/2 inches for fourth place.

Lopes senior Therese Olshanski added five more points with a fourth-place finish in the 5,000 with a time of 16 minutes, 41.8 seconds. She had also scored four points Friday by taking fifth in the steeplechase.

"She's one of the most dedicated, hardest-working athletes I've seen in my coaching career," Flood said. "I'm thrilled she finished her collegiate career as a Lope."

The remainder of Saturday's GCU points came with a fifth-place showing in the 1,600-meter relay (Katie Petsch, Moodry, Mia Corners and Anaya Bailey) and a sixth-place race in the 400-meter relay (Corners, Petsch, Dawnielle Lewis and Atena Rayson.

"It was really nice to see the three seniors finish their WAC career with great relay legs," Flood said.

GCU's scoring base came Thursday, when juniors Summer Grubbs and Camdyn Bruner took second and third, respectively, for 14 combined points in the heptathlon.

Pole vaulters Jaida Olson, a junior, and Amy Madsen, a freshman, scored five points together with fifth- and eighth-place finishes, respectively. Junior Brooke Weimer and Corners were second and sixth in the long jump for 11 points while junior Alyssa Walls added five more by taking fourth in the hammer throw.
Keira Christie-Galloway