<lads continued their impressive display of middle-distance depth last Saturday at the University of Minnesota.
The meet began with the Distance Medley Relay, a conglomeration of events that can be really quite exciting if the teams match up well. If they don’t, then just feel bad for the 1600m runner.
Luckily, on Saturday they did match up, with the Knights racing from start to finish. Alison Smyth ’12 led off the relay with a 3:38 split for the 1200m, handing off to Ellie Wilson ’15, who sped her way to a 57.8 400m leg. Clare Franco ’12 received the baton and demonstrated why we all have such faith in her, running 2:17 for the half mile. Long distance star Simone Childs-Walker ’12 finished the job, digging deep to take the Knights to a school record and sixth place ranking in the nation.
It only got better from there. Maggie Sullivan ’14 triumphantly returned to the track following a bout with mono to run the 60- and 200-meter dashes. In the 200m dash, Wilson would return to the track to run 0.36 seconds faster than her best, placing fourth out of 61. She is now ranked third in the conference.
In other sprinter news, Anna Persmark ’15 discovered a new event. She tried out the 600-meter dash, finding it to be quite a lot of fun.
Another exciting event for the Knights was the mile run. Kiera Wilhelm ’15 discovered a level of speed she never knew she had, dropping 16 seconds off her time from earlier in the season. I’ve never seen so many negative splits in the same run.
Kaitlin Randolph ’12 ran an impressive 5:20 and the dynamic duo of Colette Celichowski ’15 and Sarah Trautman ’13 worked together to get under the 5:15 mark, running 5:11 and 5:10 respectively. They were seventh and fifth in the event, out of 61 competitors.
The highest placing Knight of the day, however, was Miss Haley Johnson ’13. I’m not really sure I believe that she was sick—I think she just wanted a nap. She slept through the early portion of the meet to store up her energy to place third in the 1000m run, breaking the three-minute barrier and putting her as the fastest 1000m runner in the conference right now.
Being a high quality open meet, Lindsay Turchan ’12 took on professional runners in the 800m run, leading her to a personal best time by four seconds. Taylor Ffitch ’12 led the way in the 3k for the Knights, placing fourth in 10:29.
In the same event Carrie Harshbarger ’13 managed to run six seconds faster than she did last week, setting her up well to run that event at conference.
Taking a break from the DI competition, the Knights will be across the river tomorrow at the Ole Open. It will be the last meet for some of the team, while it serves as a tune-up for the conference championships for the rest.