PELLA, Iowa (May 1, 2026) - Buena Vista freshman Hailey Hearting flirted with the school record in the pentathlon last week at Northwestern College, but on Friday evening she would break the 37-year mark by chalking up 4,410 points and placing second at the Outdoor A-R-C Championships hosted by Central College.

Hearting began the event on Thursday by placing fifth in the 100-meter hurdles, eighth in the high jump, fifth in the shot put and fourth in the 200-meter dash. She came back on Friday and made her move by placing second in the long jump and winning the javelin before finishing off the event and breaking the record with an eighth-place finish in the 800-meter run.

The previous record set back in 1989 was 4,379 points and set by Barb Buckwalter who went on to be named the Iowa Conference MVP that season. Hearting had come within 54 points of the mark at the Red Raider Open. She becomes the program's first all-conference finisher of this year's outdoor conference championships.

Earlier in the afternoon on Friday, Hearting would take sixth place overall in the long jump with a personal best leap of 5.40m  (17'8.75").

Ava Mills came in 10th in the heptathlon with 3,748 points. Also on Friday afternoon, she went on to qualify for Saturday's finals of the 100-meter hurdles with a qualifying time of 15.30 that was seventh. Junior Megan Bakke ran a season-best time of 2:21.72 in the 800-meter prelims and missed out on the finals by three seconds after placing 11th.

Junior Payton Schermerhorn gave the Beavers team points in the shot put with seventh-place finish after a heave of 12.22m (40'1.25").

BVU heads into Saturday's final day in seventh-place overall with 13 points through eight scored events. Action inside of Ron and Joyce Schipper Stadium begins with the field events at 10 a.m. The first running event will be the 4x100m relay at 1:30 p.m.