The cold weather has done little to cool the red-hot competitive spirit of the Elizabethtown College Blue Jays. Etown’s track and field teams traveled to Landover, Md. to compete against several other schools. The event occurred on Jan. 18 at the Prince George Sports and Learning Complex.
Events started with the women’s 5000-meter relay. The only heat of the event mostly revolved around a few athletes sprinting far ahead of everyone else, leaving Blue Jay sophomore Keely Fitzgerald, junior Isabell Anderson and graduate Bridget Kennedy to catch up alongside every other racer. The three Blue Jays couldn’t keep up with the crowd and placed ninth, 13th, and 15th, respectively.
The event went somewhat better for the men’s team. During the first heat, Blue Jay sophomore Derek Kendig managed to keep up with a few other runners near the front of the group. Runner Devin Horseman-Guy kept a massive lead for most of the event, but Dickinson Junior Alexander Kane and Senior Brock Overlander slowly but surely closed the distance. Kendig couldn’t overtake the Dickinson runners or Horseman-Guy but finished the event in seventh place with a time of 15:46:80.
During the second heat, Etown performed even better. Blue Jay graduate student Carter Balliet overtook most of the competition and finished roughly four seconds behind first place with a time of 16:03:04.
By the time the men’s 5000-meter ended, Kendig remained in seventh place, Balliet achieved 12th, and Blue Jay juniors Martin Ratchford and Chase Wargo placed 15th and 20th, respectively.
Afterwards, the women’s 60-meter relay dealt with a few technical issues. Four false starts and issues with the starting revolver caused the announcer to express concern for the runners repeating the same physically strenuous event.
When the 60-meter events concluded, the Blue Jays found themselves just a step away from the finals. In the events without hurdles, Etown sophomore Sophie Shadle and junior Matthew Lamb performed the best out of their teams in the women’s and men’s categories, respectively. Lamb achieved 23rd place, and Shadle got 31st place.
The Blue Jays performed better in the 60-meter hurdle events. Etown sophomore Kate Bendall qualified for the finals with a time of 9.56 seconds.
Bendall brought that same performance from the track to the field as the day progressed. They placed sixth in the women’s high jump and long jump with a score of 10.46 meters and 4.97 meters, respectively.
As for the men’s field events, Blue Jay senior Aspen Stahl-Emig placed 10th in the men’s weight throw event and eighth in the men’s shotput event.
“I improved my personal record in shot put by 15 [centimeters] and placed decently in weight throw,” Stahl-Emig said. “For the rest of the throwers on the team, overall, it was a solid performance.”
Meanwhile, Etown was performing excellently back on the track. Blue Jay sophomore Trevor Albright and junior Joseph Wagner competed in the 400-meter event, with Albright achieving the second-best time of the entire event. Albright finished with a time of 51.37 seconds—roughly one second behind Dickinson College athlete Franklyn Akabi-During—and Wagner got a time of 57:31 seconds.
Etown’s track and field teams will compete again on Feb. 1, at the Alvernia Physical Education Center in Reading, Pennsylvania.
