by Benny Benton
WILSON, N.C. – The Barton College women's indoor track and field team is competing this weekend while ranked No. 10 in the Southeast Region, according to the first USTFCCCA Division II Regional Team Index released this week.
The index is produced using a mathematical formula that takes into consideration both actual performance during the 2015 season and potential success based on team members' historical results.
The Lady Bulldogs had a compiled score of 114.24, the second-highest total among any tenth-place team in the eight regions analyzed and a reflection of the region's overall depth and strength.
Barton senior Zorayda Rodriguez had a hand in more than 43 of those points. The four-time indoor all-conference honoree from Knightdale, N.C., ranks fifth in the Southeast Region in both the 400-meter run and the long jump, and is seventh in triple jump. She also is one of the four runners on the 4x400-meter relay team that ranks sixth in the region.
Other members of that relay team include junior Alexandria Robinson, who contributed a team-high 16.22 points to the index based on her fourth-place standing in the region in the 400-meter run, and senior Cimone Barbour, who ranks fifth in the 800-meter run.
The Lady Bulldogs also ranked regionally in the distance medley with a squad that includes Barbour, Breyuana Kittrell, Heather Cuddington and Lauren Andreola. Cuddington and Andreola both contributed individually to Barton's index score with top-10 region performances in the 3000-meter run.
Conference Carolinas was extremely well-represented in the Southeast Region. Barton was the last of six league programs in the index. Newcomer Southern Wesleyan University was No. 2 (255.91 index), followed by Limestone College at No. 3 (230.79). Three league schools rank directly ahead of the Lady Bulldogs, King University in seventh (149.46 index), University of Mount Olive in eighth (140.96) and Converse College in ninth (119.81).
The Lady Bulldogs are participating in the Hilton Garden Invitational this weekend, hosted by Wake Forest University at JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, N.C. The league's conference championships will take place February 22 on the same track.
