Rochester Institute Technology sophomore Sadie Schreiner has an eye for the good shot as a photography major. This weekend she trades shutter speed for sprinter speed in the 200 meters at the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships in Virginia Beach, Va., starting Friday.
Schreiner is the RIT Tigers’ lone women’s qualifier for these championships and enters Friday’s heats seeded ninth. She been on a steady march up the rankings since a breakthrough effort at RIT’s Friday Meet on Jan. 26. She set school records while winning the 200 meters in 25.27 seconds, and at 300 meters in 40.78 seconds. She also anchored a winning 1600-meter relay effort.
At the Boston University Invitational on Feb. 9, she put herself in the national conversation in Division III with 24.62-second run at 200 meters that placed her 11th overall in a meet that had runners from all three NCAA divisions. The time lowered her school record and as fast enough to meet the Division III championship qualifying standard for the event.
With a seat at NCAAs in hand, Schreiner didn’t stop pushing. She went to the Liberty League Championships and snagged a conference title in the 200 and finished second at 400 meters to help RIT’s women to a third-place finish in the team standings.
Get off the sidelines and into the game
Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Throughout the season, certain groups have been pointing these facts out in a less flattering light. Schreiner is one of the handful of out transgender student-athletes competing in the NCAA this season. By the current regulations of the NCAA, which include her having to send in medical testing data to confirm hormone levels prior these championships, Schreiner is fully eligible to take the starting blocks Friday night.
If she reaches Saturday’s final, she would be the NCAA’s third out transgender All-American, joining former Franklin Pierce (N.H.) track athlete CeCé Telfer and former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas. Should Schreiner win the event final Saturday night, she would join Telfer and Thomas as NCAA champions.
To make that history, Schreiner must outrun a field of 20 competitors that include Mount Union’s Kenadee Wayt, who is defending Division III indoor and outdoor national champion at 200 meters and North Carolina Wesleyan true freshman Kamiyah Wooten who enters as the top seed.
