Northwestern rewrote the record books in South Bend.
The next step of Northwestern’s inaugural indoor track and field season was at South Bend, where it competed at Notre Dame’s Meyo Invitational this past weekend. There, the Wildcats had a meet to remember, highlighted by Skye Ellis’ first-place finish and program record.
Ellis won the women’s 800-meter event and was Northwestern’s sole event victor, topping a field of 40 runners from schools like Notre Dame, Iowa, Michigan State and Indiana. Her time of 2:07.23 broke her own record of 2:10.13, previously set in February 2025 at the Blue Demon Alumni Classic.
Also breaking a school record was Anna Hightower, who finished fifth in the mile championship final. She went 4:36.91, a little over two seconds behind the winner, but also fast enough to beat her personal best of 4:57.01 by 20 seconds. That best time also came from the 2025 season.
Hightower’s time notably places her seventh overall in the Big Ten. Two of the runners faster than her in the conference, Minnesota’s Isabelle Schmitz (4:34.67) and Indiana’s Lily Myers (4:34.88), competed in her heat.
Behind Ellis, the Northwestern runner with the second-highest individual finish at the meet was Jacqueline Holman, who went 16:00.60 to place third in the 5000-meter event — the longest of the entire meet. She shattered her previous best time by 15 seconds in her race.
Maddy Whitman rounded out Northwestern’s top-five finishers with a fifth-place finish in the 3000-meter run. She clocked a personal best time of 9:15.67 in a narrow race where fourth through sixth places were separated by just 1.14 seconds.
The Wildcats also competed in one relay — the distance medley relay, where teams run relay legs of 1200, 400, 800 and 1600 meters in order. Hightower, Whitman, Cary Drake and Olivia Capala comprised Northwestern’s ‘A’ team for the event, finishing third overall with a time of 11:14.56, which ranks third in the Big Ten and 11th nationally. The two conference teams ahead of Northwestern were Minnesota and Michigan State, which both ran in the same heat as the Wildcats.
Next up, Northwestern will send athletes to both the Demon Alumni Classic at DePaul on Feb. 13, as well as the David Hemery Valentine Invitational hosted by Boston University on Feb. 14.
Category: General Sports
