LEXINGTON, Va. (Feb. 28, 2026) - Micailah Cook and Deena Ludtke both made multiple trips to the podium and Cook and Tyla Nicholson snagged historic gold medals to lead ETSU at the 2026 SoCon Indoor Track & Field Championships at the Corps Physical Training Facility on the campus of VMI.
Cook, a sophomore from Sandston, Virginia, set a personal best indoor time in the 200m in the Friday preliminaries with a 24.11 before winning the finals with a time of 24.39 seconds the following day. She followed that up with bronze in the 400m, setting an indoor personal best time at 55.41 seconds. They are Cook's first SoCon indoor medals, following on from her gold in the outdoor version of both events last May.
Nicholson, a junior from Douglasville, Georgia, set a personal best of 16.77m (55'0.25") in the weight throw on her sixth and final attempt to win the event in dramatic fashion. She is the first Buccaneer to win the weight throw since Zachlynn Blackburn in 2010, the second Buc ever to win a conference title in the event and the first to do so in the SoCon.
Ludtke, a sophomore from Lexington, Virginia, recovered from a slow start in the 3000m run on Friday to finish third with a personal best time of 9:51.81, a personal best. Her 5000m run followed a similar pattern, with her rising from eighth to third just past the halfway mark, and after running neck and neck with Furman's Zoie LaManna for most of the back end of the race, Ludtke found an extra gear in the final 400 meters to beat her for the last step on the podium by four seconds with a 17:03.617, also a personal best.
Other accolades for the Bucs included All-Freshman honors for Katelynn Lemke for an eighth-place finish in the 400m at 55.75 seconds, Maddie Winchester with a 15.57m weight throw to finish fourth, and Eliza Everett for a 10:45.35 race time in the 3000m run. Lemke and Winchester set personal bests in their events, two of a total of 26 personal bests or season bests set at the SoCon Championships.
ETSU finished fifth as a team with 60 points, safely ahead of host VMI. Samford won the event for the eleventh consecutive year.
With the indoor season concluded, ETSU will begin training for the 2026 outdoor season which begins in three weeks at the Charlotte 49er Classic in Charlotte, North Carolina.
For more information on ETSU track & field, go to ETSUBucs.com.
