April 18, 2010

Complete Results

CHESTER, PA - The conditions at Widener were anything but ideal, with very high winds and chilly temperatures, but the women's track and field team still was able to get some quality performances in just two weeks from the Centennial Conference Championships.

Friday evening saw some outstanding performances. The women's pole vaulters, all freshmen, had an outstanding day, taking fifth, eighth, ninth, and 12th places. Emily Kashka had her best performance of the year, vaulting 10'6" for fifth place. Stephanie Spetka, who came in with a person-best mark of 8'6", was able to clear 9' on her third attempt, her best ever, and then came right back and cleared 9'6.25" on her very first attempt to jump a foot better than her previous best. Cherry Yeung equaled her mark of 9'6.25", and Tricia Decker came back from illness cleared 8'6.25". All of the vaulters rank amongst the conference's top 10.

In the women's 5k, JHU showed their depth in the distance events, finishing third, fourth, and fifth out of 32 runners. Sophomore Cecilia Furlong ran a personal-best time of 18:11.72 for third place. Megan Brower continued her hot streak, with her third-consecutive personal best race, dropping her 5k time down by an astonishing 35 seconds taking fourth place in 18:21.74. Senior Mira Patel rounded out the top five with a time of 18:44.94.

On Saturday, things got started early with the women's 1500m, as the wind seemed to slow the pace down on the very fast first section. Laura Paulsen and Marielle Hall (unattached) set a modest pace early, as freshman Liz Provost and about six other competitors formed a trail pack about four seconds back. Hall was able to pull away in the final 300m, with Paulsen closing with a furious kick but ran out of real estate taking second in a time of 4:39.54, with Provost taking fourth with a time of 4:47.31. Mary O'Grady, also in the fast section, ran 4:56.35. In the later sections, many of the lady Blue Jays ran huge personal bests with Kimia Ganjai running 5:19.08, Ashton Williams at 5:24.74, and Josey Mintel with a big drop down to 5:25.66.

In the 100m High Hurdles, captain Anita Mikkilineni ran her best race of the year, taking second place overall to conference foe, and indoor high hurdle champion Kenyetta Givans (Swarthmore) with a time of 5.87. This is the first time Mikkilineni has been under 16 seconds this year.

Freshman Marie Ferguson ran a very strong race in the 800m, taking second in her heat by out-kicking two West Chester runners over the last 100m by less than a second finishing in 2:24.82.

In one of the most exciting races of the day, the 400m Intermediate Hurdles, Anita Mikkilineni, Hannah Davis (Haverford) and Danielle Howard (West Chester) ran stride for stride through the first seven hurdles of the race. As they came down the stretch, Mikkilineni moved to the front with flawless hurdle technique inching ahead of the other two runners. As they cleared the last hurdle, Mikkilineni had the lead but a furious kick by Davis and Howard snatched the lead away, with Mikkilineni taking third with a season best time of 1:08.21. Davis and Mikkilineni will have their rematch two weeks from now at the conference championships.

Amelia Vallenilla continued her strong ways in the women's 200m, taking second in her flight with the fastest Division III time of the day in 26.27, just a tenth of a second ahead of the next Division III runners, Eliza Reiss and Christina Neilson, both from Haverford.

The women's steeplechase proved to be no competition for the Hopkins harriers Mary O'Grady and Elizabeth Laseter, as they easily finished first and second, both with personal best times of 11:43.66 and 11:56.65, respectively.

Alana Merkow and Jackie Freud (Haverford) once again found each other finishing back-to-back to one another in the women's shot put, this time with Freud getting the edge taking second overall and Merkow placing third out of a field of 28. The night before, Merkow was able to take 7th in the discus with a throw of 101'2", being outdone by senior captain Krystina Laucik, who threw her best of the year with 105'8", taking fifth overall.

Hopkins will have a 4x400m relay team as well as two individuals, Cecilia Furlong in the steeplechase and Laura Paulsen in the 5000m competing at Penn Relays on Thursday, April 22, while the rest of the team will have one final tune-up for the Centennial Championships at Millersville on Saturday, April 24.