Women's track clashes in the Battlegrounds

The women’s track and field team started its outdoor season last weekend at the Battleground Relays, hosted by Mary Washington College. With the Rochester weather preventing the team from practicing outside in the days and weeks leading up to the outdoor season, it seemed likely that the women would be a bit rusty. In a somewhat surprising fashion, however, the women stepped up in their first event of the new season and exceeded expectations. In her first competition since Eastern Colleges Athletic Conference Championships several weeks ago, junior Anne Baker placed second in the hammer throw, as she marked 148’8″ which is very close to the provisional qualifying mark for NCAA Championships. Sophomore Lorena Suarez-Delgado performed well in the hammer throw and marked 115’3″ to finish eighth. With a mark of 100’1″ junior Grace Kraay started out an impressive weekend with a fifth-place finish in the javelin throw. She also posted an eighth-place finish in the discus, as she marked 98’8.” But her most impressive performance of the weekend came in the shot put. Marking 38’1″, she finished in first place and broke her own school record. “A number of women set personal records in the throws, which is really encouraging to see considering how little time they’ve had to practice outdoors,” Head Coach Barbara Hartwig said. “They’ve been strong indoors and they’ll continue to be a strong force outdoors. I feel like we’re capable of scoring in all four events. It’s nice to feel like we’re covered across the board.” The 4×800-meter relay team dominated in their first competition of the outdoor season, winning the event by nearly 14 seconds. Their time of 9:40.20 was also just one second off the outdoor school record that was set last season. “I would be surprised if we didn’t set another school record in that event this season,” Hartwig said.In the 4×100-meter relay, the women ran 54.16 seconds to finish sixth. The 4×200-meter relay team ran 1:51.81, finishing fourth. In one of their best times of the season – indoors or outdoors – the 4×400-meter relay team finished the race in 4:07.60 to earn second place. With a time of 2:02.70, the sprint medley relay team placed sixth and the distance medley relay team was fourth with a time of 14:03.47. “I was most pleased with our handoffs in the sprint relays. You have to hand it to these women, they really stepped it up,” Hartwig said. In one of the top events of the day, four of the women placed in the top ten in the 1,500-meter run. With a time of 4:55.49, senior Elizabeth Canfield was first overall. Senior Erika Wasserstein ran 5:16.41 to finish in fifth place. Sophomore Jessica VanBinsbergen completed the race in 5:19.93 to finish eighth and freshman Charlotte Reardon ran 5:24.81, finishing tenth. Wasserstein and VanBinsbergen also finished sixth and ninth respectively in the 3,000-meter run. In the triple jump, sophomore Laura Porterfield and senior Katrina Nowak were sixth and seventh with marks of 33’1.5″ and 32’8″ respectively. Nowak placed sixth in the long jump, as she marked 14’10.” Sophomore Michelle Gabriele marked 14’3.5″ in the long jump to finish ninth. With respective marks of 4’10” and 4’8,” freshman Melinda Huang and sophomore Anna Barbi finished in third and fifth places.”It was a really nice meet. The competition was good and it was nice to have the weather to be able to compete to our best. It was nice to have somebody different there to compete against. Hopefully we can keep some of the momentum we got going down there through the rest of our outdoor meets,” Hartwig said.Swidler can be reached at dswidler@campustimes.org.