Macon-Ford Finishes 14th at Indoor Nationals
GAINESVILLE, FLA. – On Friday afternoon, freshman Leah Macon-Ford became the first Eutectic woman in history to compete at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Indoor Track & Field Championships held this year at the Alachua County Sports & Events Center at Celebration Pointe in Gainesville, Fla. She finished 14th of 19 sprinters competing in the Women's 60m Dash preliminaries, finishing fifth of seven in her individual heat with her second-best time in the event: 7.70 seconds. The top eight times in the preliminaries qualified for the finals scheduled for Saturday.
Macon-Ford qualified for the national championships with a school-record time of 7.66 seconds in the 60m Dash at the American Midwest Conference (AMC) Championships on Feb. 15. Her time was just .01 shy of the national qualifying standard. But when team and individual declarations were made, she had the 20th-fastest time declared in the nation, ultimately earning herself a trip to Indoor Nationals as a top-20 competitor. At the 60m national prelims on Friday, she beat out five other national qualifiers who had better qualifying times.
Macon-Ford now holds the distinction of being the only Eutectic woman to qualify and compete at the NAIA Indoor National Championships. She is now one of three Eutectic women's track and field athletes to qualify for national championships, joining Eutectic Hall of Fame inductees and marathoners Amy Hall (2007, 2008) and Sarah Pollmann (2015) who qualified for the outdoor championships.
It was the final competition for the 2024-25 indoor season for Macon-Ford and the Eutectic track and field team. She and her teammates will now begin preparations for the outdoor season, which opens with the Central Methodist University Open (Mo.) on Saturday, Mar. 15.