<st Saturday the women’s indoor track squad traveled across the river for a little tussle with Hamline and St. Olaf. The meet was a successful first foray into competition, highlighted by the sheer presence of Carleton sprinting on the track.
Brooke Granowski ’13 seemed to be everywhere, running all of the sprints and high jumping, placing in the top 3 in every event she competed in.
The sprinters also saw strong performances from Kelsey Donald ’10 and Lily Van der Staay ’12 in the 55 and 200 meter races, both qualifying for the 55 finals but intelligently choosing to rest their tight hamstrings rather than risk injury in the process of scoring some points.
Moving up to the long sprints, Carleton ran extremely well in the 400m, putting both Granowski and Haley Johnson ’13 in the top 4 and under 65 seconds. Quite impressive for the first race of the season. And nobody can forget Kaitlin Randolph’s impressive 800m, shaving 3 seconds off her personal best despite some rather uneven pacing. We are quite excited to see what she does once she chooses to exercise a little more control on that first lap.
In the longer races, Simone Childs-Walker ’12 and Laura Roach ’10 placed 1-2 in both the mile and the 3k. Childs-Walker cut down her personal best for the mile race and lapped everyone in the 3k except for Roach. This performance earned her MIAC Athlete of the Week honors.
Carleton’s other event winner was Kyla Walter ’11, who cleared more vertical height than anyone else in the high jump, despite not having jumped in two weeks. This was caught on tape by the performer most unrecognized in the results, Clare Franco ’12. Franco’s performance required her to be present at every event, spice up the video with some Jill Merkle, drive everyone to and from the meet, and get a work out in too. Hopefully this energy can be channeled into some running at the team’s next meet, a home dual against St. Ben’s next Friday.