Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Building a Record-Setting Throws Group

Emily Lawrence enters her sixth year on the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology track and field staff in 2026-27, where she coaches the throwers in the shot put, discus, hammer throw, weight throw, and javelin. She arrived for the 2022 indoor season to coach the pole vault and javelin, then took over the full throws group in 2025.

In two seasons leading the full throws group, Lawrence's athletes have won three HCAC discus titles and set two school records, and Antoine Cooper reached the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships twice. They have collected eight HCAC Throws Athlete of the Week awards and six USTFCCCA All-Region honors in that span, and five throwers she has coached now rank among the top three in Rose-Hulman history in their events.

Since Lawrence joined the staff, Rose-Hulman has won 12 HCAC track and field team championships, and the men have won back-to-back triple crowns in 2024-25 and 2025-26. Over more than 15 years in college coaching, she has sent athletes to the NCAA Division III Championships 13 times and coached two athletes to four All-America honors.

The Numbers

• 3 HCAC discus titles since 2025 (Antoine Cooper 2025 and 2026, Carolina Snyder-Perez 2026)
• 2 current Rose-Hulman school records: men's indoor weight throw (Cooper) and women's discus (Snyder-Perez)
• 5 throwers in the top three of the Rose-Hulman record book: Cooper, Snyder-Perez, Grant Subbert, Aaliyah Jones, and Megan Korte
• 9 USTFCCCA All-Great Lakes Region honors at Rose-Hulman: 7 in the throws and 2 in the pole vault
• 8 HCAC Throws Athlete of the Week awards in 2025 and 2026
• 2 trips to the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships for Cooper in the discus (21st in 2025, 22nd in 2026)
• 7 HCAC pole vault titles from 2023 to 2025
• 12 HCAC track and field team championships during her tenure (7 men's, 5 women's), plus back-to-back men's triple crowns in 2024-25 and 2025-26
• 2025 HCAC Men's Coaching Staff of the Year, with head coach Shane Mills and Derick Lawrence
• 2013 USTFCCCA South/Southeast Region Men's Outdoor Assistant Coach of the Year

Antoine Cooper: Two Trips to Nationals

Lawrence took over the full throws group for the 2025 indoor season, and Antoine Cooper took off. His weight throw jumped from 49' 1.75" in January 2025 to 55' 10.5" three weeks later, already third in school history. That spring he won the HCAC discus title at 167' 9", more than 16 feet past his winning throw from the year before.

Two weeks after the conference meet, Cooper threw 169' 4" (51.61m) at the Sycamore Open at Indiana State. The mark ranked 13th in Division III at the time, second in Rose-Hulman history, and third in HCAC history, and it sent him to the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships, where he placed 21st.

As a senior in 2026, Cooper broke the school record in the indoor weight throw with 59' 1.5" at the DePauw Invitational, nearly 10 feet farther than his first throw of 2025 and the sixth-best mark in HCAC history. He then won his third straight HCAC discus title at 169' 0" and made it back to nationals, finishing 22nd at UW-La Crosse. He earned USTFCCCA All-Region honors three times under Lawrence: in the discus in 2025 and 2026 and in the weight throw in 2026. He finished his career with seven HCAC Athlete of the Week awards, six of them under Lawrence, all while majoring in mechanical engineering.

New Names in the Record Book

Carolina Snyder-Perez had to wait her turn. She placed third in the discus at the HCAC Outdoor Championships as a sophomore and again as a junior. As a senior in 2026, she won the title with a throw of 143' 6", a Rose-Hulman school record and the fifth-best mark in HCAC history. She added a career-best 144' 10" in the hammer at the same meet.

That 2026 conference meet showed how deep the throws group had become. Cooper won the discus and took third in both the hammer and shot put, and Grant Subbert was runner-up in the hammer at 172' 3". Two weeks later Subbert threw 176' 3" at the Sycamore Open, third in school history, to earn his first HCAC Throws Athlete of the Week award.

In the javelin, Aaliyah Jones earned USTFCCCA All-Region honors in 2022 with a throw of 126' 1", second in school history and sixth in HCAC history. She won two HCAC Field Athlete of the Week awards and finished as the conference runner-up in 2024. Megan Korte joined her on the school list in 2026, throwing 123' 6" at the Sycamore Open for third all-time and an HCAC Throws Athlete of the Week award. Korte, Snyder-Perez, Subbert, and Cooper all earned USTFCCCA All-Region honors in 2026.

Raising the Bar in the Pole Vault

Lawrence coached Rose-Hulman's pole vaulters from 2022 through the 2025 outdoor season, and they won seven HCAC titles in that stretch. In Lawrence's first spring, Claire Perkins cleared a career-best 10' 6" in her final home meet, then the second-best vault in school history, and was named HCAC Field Athlete of the Week. Logan McLaughlin won the 2023 indoor title at 11' 11.75", and Colin Welsh took the outdoor title that spring at 12' 3.5" as a freshman.

Kolton Nanko cleared 13' 3.5" in his first college meet in January 2024. Six weeks later he won the HCAC indoor title at 14' 1.25". He swept the indoor and outdoor titles in 2025, earning USTFCCCA All-Region honors both seasons, and finished at 15' 5.75" outdoors, more than two feet higher than where he started.

Irene Lema Madueno made the same kind of climb. She opened her college career at 8' 4" in January 2024 and placed third at the HCAC Indoor Championships that winter as a freshman. In 2025 she swept the conference indoor and outdoor titles and raised her best to 10' 4.75".

Three Stops Before Terre Haute

Lawrence came to Rose-Hulman after stops at three other NCAA Division III programs, the last of them as a head coach.

Earlham College (2019 to 2022). Lawrence led Earlham's men's and women's track and field programs and assisted with cross country. Her first season was cut short by the pandemic, but not before Earlham won three event titles and recorded 12 all-conference performances at the 2020 HCAC Indoor Championships. Madison Huelskamp won the long jump at 5.09m and was named HCAC Co-Women's Indoor Freshman of the Year. Distance runner Noah Scherf represented the United States in the T13 5,000 meters at the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships in Dubai, finishing ninth. John Mahaney earned USTFCCCA All-Region honors in the javelin in 2021.

Albion College (2014 to 2019). Lawrence coached Albion's throwers, multi-event athletes, and high jumpers, producing four MIAA champions. Kejuan Frazier won three MIAA shot put titles, sweeping indoor and outdoor as a freshman in 2018. A year later he threw 16.32m to earn All-Region honors and qualify for the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships, where he placed 12th. ShaQuoria Thompson threw 13.61m as a freshman in 2019 and placed 17th at the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships. She earned All-Region honors that year in both the shot put and the discus. Rayshawn Robinson won the MIAA javelin title in 2017 and Andrew Strzelecki won it in 2018, and Strzelecki also set the school record in the weight throw. Alyssa Wright set the outdoor hammer record in 2015 and the indoor weight throw record in 2016. Richard Annorat won three MIAA indoor high jump titles, earned five USTFCCCA All-Region honors, cleared 2.11m, and qualified for the 2018 NCAA Indoor Championships. Angela Morrison qualified for nationals in both the pentathlon and heptathlon in 2017 and earned three All-Region honors that season.

University of Texas at Tyler (2010 to 2014). Lawrence started her career at UT-Tyler as an assistant track and field coach and head strength and conditioning coach. In 2012 Buck Thompson qualified for nationals in the discus and shot put and earned All-America honors with a fifth-place finish in the discus. School records fell that season in the shot put, discus, and hammer.
The next year was even better. At the 2013 NCAA Championships, Thompson earned All-America honors in both the shot put (7th) and discus (8th), and Ed Palencia earned All-America honors with a sixth-place, school-record javelin throw of 65.10m. Thompson was named South/Southeast Region Men's Field Athlete of the Year, and Lawrence was named the USTFCCCA South/Southeast Region Men's Outdoor Assistant Coach of the Year. In 2014 she coached freshman Alexis Baldwin, who set a school record in the 100 meters and qualified for nationals as the second-fastest freshman in Division III.
UT-Tyler won its first American Southwest Conference titles while she was there, the men in 2013 and 2014 and the women in 2014. At the 2013 conference meet, her athletes scored 121 of the men's 240 points.

The Athlete Behind the Coach

Lawrence was a heptathlete at the University of Dayton, where she placed third in the heptathlon at the Atlantic 10 Outdoor Championships in 2009 and 2010. She left Dayton ranked in the program's all-time top four in both the heptathlon and the javelin.

She graduated from Dayton in 2010 and earned her master's degree in kinesiology from UT-Tyler in 2012. She is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (NSCA-CSCS) and holds the USTFCCCA Multi-Event Specialist certification.

Lawrence and her husband, Derick, Rose-Hulman's head men's cross country and track and field coach, have shared a staff at Albion, Earlham, and Rose-Hulman. They live in Terre Haute with their daughter, Lucy, and two cats.

Career Track Record Before Rose-Hulman

Across her stops at Texas-Tyler, Albion, and Earlham, Lawrence coached:

• 4 NCAA Division III All-America honors: Buck Thompson in the discus (2012) and the shot put and discus (2013), and Ed Palencia in the javelin (2013)
• 11 NCAA Division III Championships entries (2012 discus and shot put; 2013 shot put, discus, and javelin; 2014 100m; 2017 pentathlon and heptathlon; 2018 indoor high jump; 2019 indoor and outdoor shot put)
• 1 South/Southeast Region Men's Field Athlete of the Year (Buck Thompson, 2013)
• 1 member of the U.S. team at the World Para Athletics Championships (Noah Scherf, 2019)
• The first American Southwest Conference team titles in UT-Tyler history, for the men (2013, 2014) and women (2014)
• 4 MIAA champions and 12 USTFCCCA All-Great Lakes Region honors at Albion
• 3 HCAC event titles and 12 all-conference performances at the 2020 HCAC Indoor Championships with Earlham

USTFCCCA All-Region Honors

Athletes Lawrence has coached have earned 22 USTFCCCA All-Great Lakes Region honors since the award began for Division III track and field in 2016.

Season	Athlete	School	Event
2026 Outdoor	Antoine Cooper	Rose-Hulman	Discus
2026 Outdoor	Megan Korte	Rose-Hulman	Javelin
2026 Outdoor	Carolina Snyder-Perez	Rose-Hulman	Discus
2026 Outdoor	Grant Subbert	Rose-Hulman	Hammer
2026 Indoor	Antoine Cooper	Rose-Hulman	Weight Throw
2025 Outdoor	Antoine Cooper	Rose-Hulman	Discus
2025 Outdoor	Kolton Nanko	Rose-Hulman	Pole Vault
2025 Indoor	Kolton Nanko	Rose-Hulman	Pole Vault
2022 Outdoor	Aaliyah Jones	Rose-Hulman	Javelin
2021 Outdoor	John Mahaney	Earlham	Javelin
2019 Outdoor	Kejuan Frazier	Albion	Shot Put
2019 Outdoor	ShaQuoria Thompson	Albion	Discus
2019 Indoor	Richard Annorat	Albion	High Jump
2019 Indoor	ShaQuoria Thompson	Albion	Shot Put
2018 Indoor	Richard Annorat	Albion	High Jump
2017 Outdoor	Angela Morrison	Albion	Heptathlon
2017 Outdoor	Angela Morrison	Albion	100m Hurdles
2017 Outdoor	Richard Annorat	Albion	High Jump
2017 Indoor	Angela Morrison	Albion	Pentathlon
2016 Outdoor	Richard Annorat	Albion	High Jump
2016 Outdoor	Zachary Osborne	Albion	High Jump
2016 Indoor	Richard Annorat	Albion	High Jump

All-Time Bests of Athletes Lawrence Has Coached

Across her career at Texas-Tyler, Albion, Earlham, and Rose-Hulman, these are the best marks by athletes Lawrence has coached in each event. All marks are wind-legal.

Event	Women	Men
100m	12.11 (Alexis Baldwin)	10.81 (Kevonte Shaw)
200m	25.79 (Alexis Baldwin)	22.24 (Dedrick Weathersby)
400m	59.13 (Chana Forstall)	50.22 (Patrick Colwell)
800m	2:18.88 (Kelly McQuaid)	1:52.37 (Ford Noack)
100m/110m Hurdles	14.99 (Angela Morrison)	15.35 (Jonathan Paez)
400m Hurdles	1:05.17 (Angela Morrison)	55.83 (Preston Mizner)
4x100m Relay	48.53	42.09
4x400m Relay	4:10.71	3:24.14
Long Jump	5.39m (17' 8.25") (Angela Morrison)	6.84m (22' 5.25") (Christian Kearney)
Triple Jump	11.29m (37' 0.5") (Chelsey Grigsby)	14.35m (47' 1") (Christian Kearney)
High Jump	1.64m (5' 4.5") (Angela Morrison)	2.11m (6' 11") (Richard Annorat)
Pole Vault	3.20m (10' 6") (Claire Perkins)	4.72m (15' 5.75") (Kolton Nanko)
Shot Put	13.61m (44' 8") (ShaQuoria Thompson)	16.80m (55' 1.5") (Buck Thompson)
Discus	43.74m (143' 6") (Carolina Snyder-Perez)	55.31m (181' 5") (Buck Thompson)
Hammer	45.65m (149' 9") (Alyssa Wright)	56.02m (183' 9") (Chris Stonestreet)
Javelin	38.44m (126' 1") (Aaliyah Jones)	65.10m (213' 7") (Ed Palencia)