The women’s track and field team got a complete team effort to win a heated outdoor MIAC championship Saturday in St. Peter.

Despite having just two individual champions all weekend, the Tommies rallied from a third-place standing Friday to edge out Gustavus by 11 points and bring home the program’s seventh straight outdoor conference championship.

“We knew it was going to be a close one,” senior Raynee DeGrio said. “It was definitely an exciting meet.”

Freshman Emily Van Heel won the triple jump, senior Melissa Kuebler won the 100-meter and many second-place finishes added up for the Tommies. St. Thomas ended with six runner-up finishes and got points from 20 different athletes for a 143.5 winning total.

“It’s always been the strength of our team, in our numbers,” DeGrio said. “We don’t build around two or three good athletes; we build around everyone.”

Van Heel alone posted 26 points for the Tommies, adding on to her 110-meter win with second-place finishes in the 200- and 400-meter. Van Heel also ran on the fourth place 4-by-400-meter relay with senior Becky Theisen, Kuebler and freshman Erin Sheehan.

Other second-place contributions included senior Allie Metzler in the 10,000-meter, DeGrio in the steeplechase, sophomore Taylor Berg in the 1,500-meter and junior Amy Maas in the shot put.

“Those [second-place] points really add up,” DeGrio said.

Gustavus had finished third in the indoor championships in March and DeGrio said the Gusties were “knocking on the door.”

“We were worried about them trying to steal one from us on their home track,” she said. “We didn’t feel pressure from that necessarily but definitely excitement.”

DeGrio and her fellow graduating seniors finished their St. Thomas careers eight-for-eight in conference championships.

“Not a lot of people get to say that,” she said.

The men’s team, plagued by injuries to All-Americans Eyo Ekpo, Ben Sathre and Mike Hutton, failed to defend its outdoor title and finished sixth with 77 points.

The Tommies slid back from a third-place standing at the end of Friday’s events despite three top-three finishes Saturday. Junior Tyler Iverson took second in the steeplechase, senior Matt Griswold finished second in the 110-meter hurdles and senior Teddy Archer landed in third place in the triple jump.

St. Thomas had 10 other finishes of eighth place or better, but it wasn’t nearly enough to chase down first place St. John’s, which finished with 141 points.

Jordan Osterman can be reached at jrosterman@stthomas.edu.