Demco, Kindt Earn All-America Awards At NCAA Championship
All-America performances by senior Alexandria Demco and sophomore Riley Kindt paced UW-Oshkosh at the NCAA Division III Women's Indoor Track & Field Championship held Friday and Saturday (March 11-12) in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Demco finished third in the mile run with a time of 4:51.68. It was the first indoor All-America award for Demco, who entered the championships seeded fourth with a qualifying time of 4:55.34 from the UW-Whitewater Midwest ELITE Invitational held Feb. 12. Demco won the mile run with a time of 5:01.26 at the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Championship held Feb. 25-26.
Ella Baran of Johns Hopkins University (Md.) won the mile run at the Division III Championship with a time of 4:47.97 while Evie Miller of Trine University (Ind.) placed second in 4:48.16.
Demco also ran with Libby Geisness, Hannah Lohrenz and Cyna Madigan on a distance medley relay team at the championship that didn't finish the race.
Kindt also earned her first indoor All-America decoration. She finished sixth in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.77 seconds. Kindt, who set a school record with her time of 6.58 seconds in the preliminaries, was seeded sixth in the event with a victorious and then school-record qualifying time of 8.64 seconds from the WIAC Championships.
Julie Babinec of North Central College (Ill) won the 60-meter hurdles title at the Division III Championship by a narrow margin over UW-Stout's Hannah Zastrow. Babinec had a winning time of 8.607 seconds and Zastrow a runner-up performance of 8.610.
Kindt also finished ninth in the long jump at the championship with a measurement of 18-1.
UW-Oshkosh was also represented at 2022 Division III Championship by Brenna Masloroff. She finished 10th in the 20-pound weight throw with a distance of 55-0 3/4 and 19th in the shot put with a toss of 37-5.
This year's championship featured 20 entrants in each of the 15 individual events and 12 contestants in both two relays. The top-eight finishers in each event earned All-America honors.
UW-Oshkosh scored nine points, all by Demco and Kindt, to finish 25th in the team standings. The Titans, who own a Division III-record nine national titles, have now scored at least three points at each of the past 35 indoor championships. UW-Oshkosh placed 27th at the 2019 Division III Championship before the 2020 and 2021 NCAA meets were canceled due to the global coronavirus pandemic.
Loras College (Iowa) won this year's team title with 59 points while UW-La Crosse finished second with 44, Ithaca College (N.Y.) third with 40, Johns Hopkins University fourth with 33 and Washington University in St. Louis (Mo.) fifth with 25.
Rounding out the top 10 teams were sixth-place Wartburg College (Iowa) with 23 points, seventh-place State University of New York at Geneseo with 22, eighth-place Tufts University (Mass.) with 20 and ninth-place Nebraska Wesleyan University and UW-Stout with 18.
2019 champion Williams College (Mass.) tallied 10 points to finish 22nd among the 62 programs that scored.
UW-Oshkosh kicks off its outdoor season on April 2 at the UW-Platteville Open.
2022 NCAA Division III Women's Indoor Track & Field Championship Video Recaps: Day One • Day Two
2022 NCAA Division III Women's Indoor Track & Field Championship Digital Program