Track Team has a Strong Showing

The Mary Washington men’sand women’s track and field teams competed in the Commonwealth Duals last weekend in Newport News, Va.

Both teams had impressive showings at the event which featured Virginia schools including Washington & Lee, Lynchburg College, Virginia Wesleyan College and host school, Christopher Newport University.

The men finished 1-2-3 in the 5,000 meter run with Scott Plunkett with a time of 15:25, Stephan Harris with a time of 15:27 and Quincy Schmidt with a time of 16:03. They also had a clean sheet in the 3,000 meter steeplechase with Chris Marino finishing in 9:51, Will Green in 10:14 and Jeff Branson with a time of 10:15. John Lilly tied for second in the high jump with a time of 1.85 meters.

Other placings include a fifth place finish by Dalton Echard in the 100 meter dash, a fifth place finish by Allan Meyer in the 200 meter dash, a seventh place finish by Frank Corona in the 400 meter dash, a sixth place finish in the 800 meter run by Chris Anderson, a sixth place finish by Daniel Ache in the 1,500 meter run and a sixth place finish by Andrew Ma in the 110 meter hurdles.

On the women’s side, freshman Paige Kelly finished in the 200 meter dash with a time of 26.39, Brooke Thompson finished second in the 100 meter hurdles with a time of 15:49, Erin Dandridge finished third in the 5,000 meter with a time of 19:52, Michelle Sutherland finished the 1:07 in the 400 meter hurdles as well as finishing first in the long jump with a distance of 4.78 meters and Mary Kamp tied for third in the high jump, jumping 1.43 meters and Cheyenne Falls finished second in the women’s shot put with a distance of 10.47 meters.
When the scores were tallied, the men’s team went 1-3 defeating Virginia Wesleyan while the women fell to all four teams. Competition was tough but most of the team prefers it.

“The competition at CNU was great,” said Thompson. “I definitely prefer going to meets with tougher teams because I’m more likely to get a PR [personal record] competing against athletes of a much higher caliber.

Scott Plunkett said, “It’s nice to get in competitive races for the experience and just to try and run some fast times, I prefer larger races with a big pack of fast guys because it’s easier to keep up a fast pace with a bunch of people around you.”

The team will compete every weekend until the conclusion of the semester looking to drop seconds for track events and gain meters for field events. They go to Towson Md. this weekend for the Goucher Invitational.