<st Saturday the women’s track team headed across the river for a day of exciting competition. The day included a school record, NCAA provisional qualifying mark, and a number of personal best performances—not too bad for the second meet of the season.
The school record came in the pole vault, as Megan Erlandson ’12 soared over 10 feet 8 inches. The coaching staff believes her success stemmed from a guest appearance in the 100m dash during Erlandson’s warm-up.
While this mark came at the beginning of the meet, the NCAA provisional qualifying mark did not come until much later. Laura Roach ’10 won the steeplechase in 11:02.09 despite an unfortunate illness foisted upon her by her apathetic roommate.
Another spectacular performance was turned in by Kaitlin Randolph ’12, as she lowered her 800m best to 2:16, placing 2nd in the event behind one of those nationally ranked Tommies. The half-mile was a successful event for the Knights all around as Haley Johnson ’13 brought her best down a few seconds to 2:26 and Jill Merkle ’12 shaved 6 seconds off hers.
The 1500m was also a successful event, with Carrie Harshbarger ’13 bringing her time down from last week, nearly catching the ghost of Nikki Reich ’10. For the distance races, it must also be observed that Sameena Ahmed ’12 ran the first steeplechase of her career impressively, considering that she forgot to run in between the barriers. Also, Julie Besenbruch ’13 and Laurel Orr ’13 ran the first 5k’s of their collegiate careers with excellent structure, both breaking the 21 minute mark.
The field events also went well, with Kelly Lovett ’11 and Jessa Youso ’13 both tossing the discus around 100 feet. Javelin also went well, with Merkle from the 800 finishing in the top ten and Rachel Gottesman ’12 finishing 14th, having never competed in the time-honored sport of track and field.
However, Gottesman’s greatest contributions may have been taking control of the video camera and leading the cheering in the 200m dash. High jump was also successful, with Kyla Walter ’11 continuing to jump 4-11. Amy Elson ’10 also jumped well, clearing 4-8.25 in the vertical jump and traveling nearly 15 feet in the horizontal equivalent.
The team looks to continue its success (and string of excellent track weather) this weekend at St. Mary’s. The team is getting to experience the conference track meet location—a little extra knowledge never hurts. Anyways, it’ll be a day filled with fast running, vaulting high, jumping far, and throwing farther.
-Alison Smyth is a member of the Women’s track team