CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The IUPUI women's track and field team multis duo of freshman Kayla Wolnik and sophomore Mikayla Miller both posted new personal bests in the pentathlon as the pair competed on day one of the Illini Invitational inside the UI Armory on Friday night (Jan. 24). Wolnik increased her previous point total by nearly 600 points while Miller was 20 points better than her prior best. 

"Kayla and Mikayla are really progressing nicely. Both are learning new events quickly. We are at a point in the learning process where we need to make the movements in practice stick and utilize them in competition," assistant coach Marissa Chew said. "The results will continue to grow and get bigger, better and stronger. It's not an easy order to complete two pentathlon competitions in three weekends, but having utilized their young training ages, the growth outweighed the risk by far."

Both opened well with new personal bests in the 60m hurdles as Wolnik clocked a time of 10.19 and Miller crossed at 11.04. Wolnik shed one-hundredth of a second off her prior best while Miller shed a quarter second off her prior best. In the high jump, Miller cleared 1.45m (4' 9'') and Wolnik posted a mark of 1.36m (4' 5 1/2''). 

The shot put saw Wolnik extend her school record to 9.34m (30' 7 3/4'') while Miller landed a throw of 7.74m (25' 4 3/4''). 

Both just missed new personal bests in the long jump as Wolnik jumped 4.75m (15' 7'') and Miller landed at 4.17m (13' 8 1/4''). 

However, the best was yet to come for both athletes though as each shed major time in the 800m run to close the competition. Wolnik ran a time of 2:40.80 to take nearly six seconds off her prior best, while Miller shed more than six seconds with a run of 2:40.90. 

The duo will be back to work tomorrow as they're joined by the remainder of the team on day two of the meet. Both Miller and Wolnik are entered in the open long jump and high jump. 

Saturday's events are slated to begin at 10:00 a.m. inside the Armory. A full recap and results will be posted to IUPUIJags.com immediately afterwards.