Noel Black started strong and never looked back, winning the Women's 5,000 Meter race at the Jet's Pizza Invitational this weekend, hosted by Saginaw Valley State.

Coming off of a strong cross country season, the Lake Superior State sophomore marked herself as a major player in the GLIAC in a race filled with strong competition from schools across the state of Michigan.

Lake Superior State Head Coach Matt Stith said, "Noel had put forth a really impressive effort, led the race basically from wire to wire, which in a long-distance event is particularly challenging, because everybody else has the leader to gauge off of and to shoot for, and the leader is just having to maintain pace by just discipline and training. And so Noel really showed where she's at in those areas."

18 different Laker athletes set 24 new personal records (PRs) during the two-day invitational, which Stith called "outstanding." Max Ward set a new PR in the Men's 60 Meter Hurdles qualifier, then broke his new mark in the final. Trey Nieman, who won the weight throw at the Jack Skoog Invitational two weeks ago, set a new PR in the event. he continues to climb the ladder of the GLIAC rankings.

"It's a nice mix," Stith said about the field at the Jet's Pizza Invitational. "There are several other GLIAC schools there, so we got to see some of our main competition in the conference, but also a nice variety of schools from mostly Michigan, but schools from around the state who we don't see all the time. So we got to test ourselves against some really fine athletes from places like Madonna and the running clubs from MSU and U of M. It was nice because every event had a really strong field, but also a field with a lot of range, so basically all of our athletes were able to be in appropriate competition that really helped them improve."

Stith praised Ward's efforts and the work he's putting in with Assistant Coach Dwayne Thompson. 

"Max is working really hard in that short hurdle race right now, even though that's not actually his favorite event. That's the long hurdles that we run outdoors. So the way he's improving by substantial amounts in that event speaks to his technical advancement and the good coaching he's getting from Coach Thompson. And also his ability to then turn around and run a very competitive 400 meters and also be a contributor to our relays."

He continued, "With Max, the hard part is we wish we had two or three of him so we could use him at all the things he could potentially be really good at."

Black's fellow sophomore cross country teammate Izzy Yeoman finished 10th in the Women's 1 Mile race, an excellent finish in a stacked field. Yeoman, Black, Olivia Gartrell and Julia Timpa all set new PRs in the event. Yeoman also posted a strong time in the Women's 3,000 Meter race.

The sheer number of new PRs is what catches the eye of the Lakers head coach the most. It speaks to his mantra of getting one day better every day, a philosophy his team embraces fully.

The Lakers are off for a week before heading to the Big Meet at Grand Valley State, another major full-squad competition. Then, the team enters final preparations for the GLIAC Championships at the end of the month.