Siefert Repeats as All-American on Opening Day of NAIA National Championships

NAIA Championship Central

ASHEVILLE, N.C. – Kiana Siefert repeated as an NAIA All-American in the long jump on Wednesday as the NAIA Outdoor Track and Field National Championships got underway.

Siefert began the day for the Trojans in the long jump and made it to the finals, where she recorded her career-best leap of 19 feet four inches, under two inches away from the program record. That mark secured a fifth-place finish and a return to the podium for a second-straight year in the event as an NAIA All-American.

Siefert nabbed TU four points, which puts the Trojans in 13th place after one day of action.  

The 4x800-meter relay team of Noel Bass, Addie Draper, Emersyn Funk and Malarie Pinwar finished second in its heat with a season-best time of 9:09.38, but failed to advance to the finals with an 11th-place finish.

The 4x100-meter relay team was disqualified after a fault in the first exchange ended Siefert, Nicole Braz Domene, D'Arjha Davis and Adrienne McKean chances in the event.

The Trojan women were set to have Sam Patterson compete in the steeplechase preliminaries and Jaynie Halterman toe the track in the 10,000-meters, but multiple lightning delays pushed both of those events to Thursday, where TU will be well represented as Siefert and Draper also take the track tomorrow in the 100-meter hurdles and 800-meters respectively.