Sports are always bigger than the individual, but when five athletes take home first-place in their respective events, as the Grand Valley State University women’s track and field team did at the 2012 NCAA Division II Indoor National Championships, that individual success helps the entire team.

With a total of 94 team points, the women locked up their second straight indoor national title on Saturday. The team had a number of outstanding performances, but there were five athletes who were superior to any other in their field.

Junior Sam Lockhart set an NCAA Division II National Championship meet record when she won her first individual national championship in the weight throw. Her toss of 67 feet, 6 inches was even more than her expectations.

“My goal this season was to score as many points as I could for the team, and my two overall throwing goals were to throw 20 meters [65 feet, 7.2 inches] in the weight throw and 16 meters in the shot put,” Lockhart said. “I would have never thought I would have the weight throw National Championship meet record. I worked really hard and it ended up paying off.”

Meanwhile, senior Lauren Buresh, competing in her final indoor meet, won the individual title in the shot put when she recorded a throw of 52-10.25. She beat out Lockhart by 5.50 inches.

The daily competition between the team’s two strong throwers only improves their skills and desire to win. The same is true for the pole vault, in which sophomore Kristen Hixson tallied a career-best vault of 13-01.50, earning her first place just ahead of senior teammate Jocelyn Kuksa.

“Not only is it nice having support as a teammate, but we practice every day together,” Hixson said. “It is always nice to have competition at practice to push you. I was just hoping to get a (personal record) mark and jump over 13 feet, which would hopefully have landed me in the top three.”

The field teams’ success was met by the distance crew.

Graduate student Rachel Patterson set an NCAA Division II National Championship meet record of her own in the 5,000-meter run. Her time of 16 minutes, 7.28 seconds, blew by the old record set by former Laker distance runner Mandi Zemba (16:16.77).

“From the distance aspect, it seemed like we needed to make a big impact with the few people that we had,” Patterson said. “I knew they had won this championship last year so it was a little added pressure to keep that up and not let everybody down.”

Patterson was also a part of the distance medley team that also set an NCAA Division II National Championship meet record. Along with fellow grad student Betsy Graney and sophomores Leiah Hess and Lisa Galasso, the group finished in a time of 11:23.35.

“Coming here they had some faith that I could anchor it,” Patterson said. “It adds a whole new element because you have three other people’s races on the line. … Being the last person, I don’t want to screw up what every single person did to get to that point.”

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