This past Friday at Susquehanna University, the Elizabethtown College track and field teams began their final tune-up before the Middle Atlantic Conference Indoor Championships this upcoming Saturday at Lehigh University. For some athletes, this was the last chance to make their qualifying marks prior to championships.
The Etown women’s distance medley relay (DMR) team ran extremely well as first-year Rachel Carr, sophomore Amelia Tearnan, junior Traci Tempone and senior Ashley Lockwood posted the second fastest time in school history. Running against several Division II teams – East Stroudsburg University and Shippensburg University – the Blue Jays’s DMR team finished the race at 12:15.52. They finished second at the invitational, but their quality run moved the DMR team from fifth to second on the school’s all-time indoor top 10 list. This was an improvement of 15.29 seconds for the group.
Two other women’s relay teams notched times on Etown’s all-time indoor top 10 list. The 4x400m relay was a success for the women as Lockwood, Tearnan, Carr and sophomore Ashley Underkofler set the third fastest indoor time from 4:14.53 to 4:08.79. Blue Jays’ sprinters Lockwood, first-year Lindsey Pekurny, junior Jackie Zylka and senior Pam Jaraczewski joined the top 10 list in the 4x200m relay. The runners set the ninth fastest time in the program’s history with a 1:52.42.
The men also competed strongly at Susquehanna. Led by junior Kevin Brady, the men’s 4x200m relay team of sophomore Alex Wildberger, junior Kevin Aspril and senior Luke Rotenberger placed fourth in the competition with a season-best time of 1:38.96. The men’s DMR team of first-years Adam Harriger and Zach Trama, sophomore Ricky Sturz and senior Brad Risser clocked in the race at 10:47.54, which was good for fifth place.
Both the men’s and women’s team had successful personal outings as well.
Carr ran a personal best of 1:00.97 in the 400m, finishing fourth. She missed the school record of 1:00.42 by just over half a second. She is currently ranked fourth all-time in the 400m after her performance Friday night.
Tempone had the 10th best time of 61 competitors in the 800m with a time of 2:23.63. The time was good for seventh on all-time women’s top 10 list.
Focht ran a personal and season-best time of 4:17.97 in the mile. He finished in second at the invitational, but his performance also moved him up to sixth on the all-time top 10 list. First-year Matt Shenk achieved a personal best in the mile with a time of 4:27.52.
Junior Lucas Dayhoff threw well with a 15.03m in the shot put, good for third in the event. Junior Eileen Kroszner led the women’s team in the weight throw with a 11.21m distance, placing 13th overall. First-year Diarra Molock also threw well. Her shot put throw hit 11m, the second best distance for Etown in indoor. First-year Krysten Dmochowski joined the top 10 trend by tying for tenth in the high jump with a 4’7-3/4” mark. Brady placed second in the pole vault with a 4.4m.
Both the men’s and women’s teams look to continue their success as they enter championships on Saturday.