Meet Information 
• Meet: NYC Gotham Cup
• Location: Ocean Breeze | Staten Island, NY
• Date: January 21, 2022

The Hopkins women traveled to Staten Island to compete in the Gotham Cup, getting to see some early see competition in about every event as they get into the competitive part of the season.  After a few early season tune up meets, the Blue Jays came out with numerous top 10 NCAA marks, a lot of PRs and a couple of school records in their best showing of this very young season.

With the NCAA National rankings being released for the first time next week, the Blue Jays now have 19 performances that rank in the top 20 in Division III. They will look to build upon that in the coming weeks as the competition continues to heat up.  Coach Bobby Van Allen added, "I couldn't be more proud of how we competed across the board.  This team has been working extremely hard without making any excuses at all.  While I'm extremely excited about all the PRs and NCAA marks, the comradery and fierce competitive drive is what really pleased me today.  In our last event of the meet, the women's 3k, the energy was just soaring as Lina and Sara certainly fed off that pushing each other to just obliterating their previous bests.  That pretty much summed up the whole day, and we're just ready to get back out there next week at George Mason."
 
Meet Highlights

• Ella Baran, competing in her first race of 2022, led the way with an NCAA leading mark of 4:51.03 in the mile.  Coming through the 800m split at a conservative 2:31 in 4^th place, she then started making moves, moving up to second place on the fifth lap. She proceeded to take the lead on the sixth lap and she never looked back. Baran gained over two seconds on the field, running a blistering 66 second last 400m to seal the win.  Freshman Harrinee Senthilkumar took 11^th place overall in 5:15 as she lowered her time for the 3^rd consecutive mile race of the season. Baran's time is the second-fastest in program history, falling just shy of Annie Monagle's program record. 

• Sophomore Victoria Kadiri continues to round into her top form, winning the women's LJ in a leap of 5.51m to jump into the top 10 nationally, but more impressive was her school record 60m time of 7.81. She broke teammate Marissa Hsu's record by a miniscule .01 seconds.  Hsu put up a 8.10m time over .2 faster than last week's 60m season debut.  Kadiri's 60m time also puts her into the top 10 nationally in that event as well.  

• All-American Annie Gutierrez was once again tearing up the track in multiple events, matching her school record time of 8.88m in the 60m hurdles.  Gutierrez would take fifth in the high jump while finishing second in the pole vault with a leap of 3.50m. Teammates Cassidy Brown, Taryn Silvernale, and Miayunique South all placed in the top 10 in the pole vault.

• The Blue Jays continued to show the depth of their NCAA National Championship XC team by placing third, fourth and fifth in the women's 3k.  Junior Sara Stephenson dropped almost 20 seconds from her personal best, running 9:57.19 to finish just ahead of teammate Lina Spjut who's time of 9:57.55 was 18 seconds faster than her PR. The pair now sit fifth and sixth nationally in the event.  Paloma Hancock made her season debut in the 3k and ran a time of 10:19 to take fifth. 

• In the Women's 400m, freshman Lauren Phillips would once again lower her season best time taking fifth overall with a time of 59.42.  Phillips would also finish with the best time for the Jays in the 200m.  

• Another school record went down with Julia Zambo eclipsing the 13m mark in the weight throw for the first time with a program record toss of 13.10m.

 
Other Notable Performances

• Katie Sullivan competed for the first time in the 500m, taking 10^th place with a time of 1:21.53
• Eleni Alvarez placed 9^th in the 1000m with a time of 3:13.44
• Sophie Nilsson placed 6^th in the triple jump with a leap of 10.91m.