Wood grad Beatty earns Converse athletic department award

James Wood graduate Lauren Beatty has been named the Converse University athletic department’s female Athlete of the Month for February.

The honor was bestowed after the sophomore was named the NCAA Division II Conference Carolinas Women’s Track & Field Athlete of the Year for her performance at the league’s indoor meet held Feb. 18-19 at the JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Beatty won the mile by 2.74 seconds in 5:13.48; the 5,000 meters by 2.85 seconds in 17.46.23; and took second in the 3,000 in 10:25.33. All three times were personal-bests, and Beatty was one of three people who broke the meet record of 17:53.87 in the 5,000 set in 2013. Beatty led Converse, which is located in Spartanburg, S.C., to its first-ever indoor conference meet title. The Valkyries scored 167 points, one more than runner-up Mount Olive in the 11-school meet.

Beatty was the conference runner-up at the Conference Carolinas cross country meet in the fall after earning the league’s Freshman of the Year award for cross country in 2022.