Cross country season opener creates new records for UMW

By MICHAEL BARNES

The University of Mary Washington’s indoor track and field celebrated at the University of Maryland Terrapin Invitational, their season opener, earlier this month after three athletes each set indoor records for UMW.

At the January 18 meet, 25 UMW runners participated in the invitational at College Park with many notable finishes.

The men’s team finished in ninth place overall at the meet, which included a number of division one programs including host, University of Maryland Terrapins.

Records are meant to be broken and that is exactly what three UMW athletes did.

Freshman Glenn Taylor, in his first varsity meet ever, tied the 60 meter dash record in preliminaries with a time of 7.17 seconds.

Taylor, hailing from local James Monroe High School, broke the UMW record in the finals with a time of 7.14, giving him fourth place overall at the meet.

He never ran the 60-meter dash competitively prior to this varsity meet, a big time accomplishment for him in his freshman year.

Taylor finished just .05 seconds behind the first place finisher.

“Even though I am happy with the time I got, I know there is still room for improvement,” Taylor said.

Zach Kerns, another UMW freshman, also found his place in the record books. Kerns set the record in the 300-meter dash with a time of 36.49 seconds, giving him second overall at the meet.

Kerns finished .51 seconds behind first place, giving him motivation to push even harder for first at their next meet, he said.

The junior class also represented well. Junior Cheyenne Falls broke the women’s shot put record with a distance of 39 feet, 8.5 inches.

That distance gave Falls ninth overall in the meet, as she finished ten feet behind first place.

Her record breaking accomplishment also earned her the Capital Athletic Conference (CAC) Women’s Indoor Track & Field Athletes of the Week title for the week of January 21.

Adding to the notable finishes, Junior Nick Judy finished fourth in the pole vault at 13 feet, 9.25 inches, and sophomore Elysa Baker made a throw of 41 feet, 4.25 inches in the weight throw.

The Eagles track and field team will be back at it Feb. 1 at the George Mason Invitational.