The Lindenwood track and field teams competed in Joplin, Mo., over the weekend at the 2017 MIAA Indoor Championships. The women's team had its best-ever MIAA indoor finish by coming in sixth, and the men's team finished 9th at the event.
 
The Lady Lions scored 44.50 points at the event, 3.50 points ahead of Nebraska-Kearney. Pittsburg State won the MIAA title with 170 points. The Lions collected 39.50 points, finishing less than three points behind seventh-place Emporia State. Pittsburg State also won the men's title with a team total of 121.50.
 
Michelle Kyle won the program's only conference title by winning the weight throw competition on Saturday afternoon. It was her first MIAA Championship and second career all-MIAA honor.
 
Kyle was one of eight Lindenwood track and field runners to earn all-conference honors. On the women's side, Kendra Smith earned the award in the triple jump. On the men's side, all-conference honors went to Akintunde Akinyemi (high jump), Colin Cernik (distance medley), Ero Doce (distance medley), Hunter Drew (distance medley), Omar Es Salmouny (distance medley), and Michael Golian (5,000m).
 
Day One Recap
Michelle Kyle has improved in the MIAA weight throw each season she has been at Lindenwood, and that trend continued as she won the conference championship in the event. She started the event with a throw of 17.81m, which would have been good enough to win. She improved it three times though, eventually finishing with a winning mark of 18.37m. Tess Augustyn also scored with a seventh-place finish.
 
Kendra Smith set a NCAA Division II automatic mark in the triple jump with a mark of 12.43m. She was tied for the lead heading into the final jump, but Diana Cauldwell was able to edge her out in the final jump by 0.03m. Anna Tyan finished fourth with a mark of 11.61m, and Joy Kanengiser scored after finishing eighth with a mark of 11.24m.
 
The men's distance medley team was leading late in the race, but was edged out by Northwest Missouri in the final leg. Its final time was 10:14.77. In the men's 5,000m race, Michael Golian earned bronze with a time of 15:21.02.
 
In the field for the men, Xavier Boland tied for sixth in the pole vault, clearing 4.83m.
 
Day Two Recap
Akintunde Akinyemi was the star of day two for Lindenwood, earning all-conference honors in the high jump. He was one of three jumpers to clear 2.04m, but only one of those three cleared the next jump of 2.07m. Akinyemi lost the tiebreaker for the bronze finish.
 
Also in the field events for the men, Michael Mlambo scored for the Lions with a fifth-place showing in the long jump. In the running finals, Omar Es Salmouny scored in two events, finishing fifth in the mile and 3,000m. Hunter Drew placed sixth in the 600-yard run, Colin Cernik was seventh in the mile, and Robert Strong placed seventh in the 200m
 
On the women's side, Erin Hodge just missed all-conference honors by coming in fourth in the 60m. Regina Huesca-Barrales earned an eighth-place finish in the 600-yard run. In the field events, Anna Tyan was fifth in the high jump, and Kendra Smith scored for the second time with a fifth-place showing in the long jump.
 
In the final event of the day, the 4x400 men's relay team finished fifth. That team consisted of Hunter Drew, Michael Mlambo, Joshua Newman, and Robert Strong.