AVON, Ohio —The Crossroads League tapped Goshen College sprinter Taylor Roasa as its Athlete of the Week in women’s indoor track on Monday, two days after she broke a pair of school records in Goshen’s season-opening meet.
Roasa clocked a time of 8.23 seconds in the 60-meter dash, bettering Melia Watkins’ 2014 mark of 8.42 seconds. She placed 14th overall and 10th among collegiate athletes at Indiana Tech’s Aaron Porter Invitational held at the Turnstone Center in Fort Wayne.
In her second event of the day, the 200-meter dash, Roasa placed 11th overall and sixth among collegiate runners in 27.29 seconds. That mark lowered the Maple Leaf program record from 27.84 seconds, where it had been since Caitlin Hughey set that bar in 2017.
Saturday marked Roasa’s first indoor meet after debuting in the 2018 outdoor season, where she ran at four different distances. The Oak Park, Michigan, native turned in three top-8 finishes at last season’s Crossroads League outdoor championship meet, placing in the 100- and 200-meter dashes and the 4×100-meter relay.
Roasa joins Abby Dunn and Erin Helmuth as the only Maple Leafs to win the conference weekly honor since its inception in the 2010-11 academic year. She was joined by Bethel’s Queen Walker, the field athlete of the week, as conference honorees from women’s track and field on Monday.
The Crossroads League announces one or more Players of the Week for each of the league’s 17 sponsored sports. The awards are based on nominations from each of the league’s 10 member institutions, with the winners chosen by a vote of league sports information directors.
Goshen College is an affordable, nationally-ranked Christian liberal arts college in Northern Indiana known for leadership in intercultural and international education, sustainability and social justice.
The Maple Leafs compete in 14 varsity sports in the NAIA’s highly competitive Crossroads League and Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference, continuing a tradition of intercollegiate athletics that dates to 1956 and included women’s competition nearly a decade before Title IX. For more information on GC athletics, visit www.GoLeafs.net and follow the Maple Leafs on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @GCMapleLeafs.
