With U Sports Nationals taking place this past weekend, it’s worth looking into how the 2025 track season panned out for the Warriors. If you’re anything like me, understanding the U-Sports track and field set up is quite a tall task. So in this article, I’ll explain how teams are crowned champions of track and field and what goes into an individual competing at the national level.
First, let’s get into scoring. Although track and field is typically seen as an individual sport, each OUA affiliated track and field team competing in the OUA championships receives a total score. Team scoring is entirely based on the individual’s placement within their event. The top eight final finishers per event are awarded points for their respective schools. Points range from 10 for first place finishers to one for eighth place finishers. Teams receive a total score at the end of the championships, and the team with the most points is crowned OUA champions.
The athletes gaining points for UW this past 2025 OUA championships are as follows: on the women’s side, Celia Markovinovic gained a total of 18 points, with 10 being for placing first in the high jump, and eight for placing second in long jump. Hillary Clark earned a total of 12 points for the Warriors: eight for finishing second in the 1500m and four for finishing fifth in the 3000m. The 4x400m relay team, made up of Hillary Clark, Nicole Schindler, Emmanuela Odukoya and Brielle Fernandez, placed seventh earning the Warriors two points.
On the men’s side, Jared Milligan earned 1.5 points for finishing seventh in the high jump. The 4x200m relay team made up of Dom Manouchehr, Samuel Amato, Lucas Baranoski and Iyinoluwa Gbenjo earned the Warriors four points with a fifth place finish. The men’s 4×400 relay team made up of Lucas Baranoski, Riley Jacobs-Gamble, Ben Lemon and Iyinoluwa Gbenjo earned the Warriors five points with a fourth place finish.
Overall, the women’s portion of the UW track and field team was able to score 32 points, placing them 5th out of 13 competing OUA schools. On the men’s side, the Warriors were only able to score 10.5 points which put them in 11th place among the 13 competing schools.
Even if your team did not score a large total number of points, athletes are still eligible to compete at the U-Sports Nationals. Any athlete placing top 2 in an individual event at the OUA championships receives an automatic bid to compete at Nationals. Additionally, athletes can qualify by achieving the U-Sports National standard at a sanctioned event during the season.
U-Sports Nationals took place March 6-8 in Windsor, Ont. Based on prior times and qualifications, seven Warriors were competing on behalf of UW.
On the men’s side, the 4x400m relay team made up of Lucas Baranoski, Riley Jacobs-Gamble, Ben Lemon and Iyinoluwa Gbenjo placed 12th, earning the Warriors zero points. Jordan Williams-Neheli competed in the 60m prelims finishing 10th, which was a few spots short of qualifying for the final race.
On the women’s side, Hillary Clark and Celia Markovinovic earned the opportunity to compete at the national level. Clark competed in both the 1000m race and the 1500m race, finishing fifth in both, earning the Warriors a total of eight points. Markovinovic competed in the high jump and the long jump. She placed second nationally in the long jump, earning the Warriors eight points and fifth in the high jump, earning the Warriors another four.
Sending two athletes, the Warriors finished in the top 10 nationally as far as points go on the women’s side. Congratulations to all members of the track and field team on a great season, and especially to the members of the team who represented our school on the national level. It’s great to be a Warrior!
