<st weekend the Knights took 8th at the 2010 MIAC Outdoor Track Championships. There were a number of impressive performances from the meet, including the fact that All-Star Clare Franco ’12 was featured on Carleton’s athlete passes.
Early on, Megan Erlandson ’12 vaulted 3.13 meters, an improvement over the previous year. Across the field, Kelly Lovett ’11 was tossing the discus, throwing over 100 feet in the competition. The running events kicked off with the 4x100m relay, as the Knights executed some brilliant handoffs and dropped their season’s best time. Later on we saw Laurel Orr ’13, who got into the meet after numerous teammates frantically tracked her down to determine her interest in competition, run the 1500m against national champion Marie Borner. It was close, but Borner edged out Orr for the win.
Moving on to the 400m dash, Kelsey Donald ’10 had a solid performance and Brooke Granowski ’13 lowered her all time best to 59.40, just missing qualifying for finals. Maybe next year. Following that event, Kaitlin Randolph ’12 and Franco ’12 dashed 800m to secure their places in the final. Donald then returned to the track to run her fastest non-wind-aided 200m. After that Simone Childs-Walker ’12 and Taylor ffitch ’12 competed in an awfully strange 10k. Turn your back for two laps and places changed again! Despite the weird race, Childs-Walker prevailed as the winner, smashing the track record set earlier by Ffitch. Ffitch was untroubled, though, and raced to a solid 5th place finish. Following that the 4×800 took to the track and each leg was quite solid. The Knights beat one team in an impressive 35-second improvement over their seed time.
On the track Laura Roach ’10 and Sameena Ahmed ’12 ran the steeplechase. Roach took 2nd in a gutsy attempt just to see what she could do. Ahmed was a bit more conservative, starting out in last but moving up 7 spots over the course of the race to take 11th. Next was the 5000m run, which almost all of the Knight’s distance runners entered. After the race was called back due to contact at the start, it started again and Childs-Walker jumped to the lead. Ffitch capitalized, taking 4th in the event. The other Knights, Nikki Reich ’10, Shannon Mueller ’12, and Julie Besenbrush ’13 competed well, unfazed by the huge field.
Then the 1600 meter relay took to the track. The team was led off by Granowski, who proceeded to run sub-60, followed by Haley Johnson ’13 in a 62, Randolph in a 60, and Donald in a 59. The team was clocked at 4:00.63, placing 7th and setting a new school record.