Track and Field Ready

This past Friday and Saturday, the University of Mary Washington men’s and women’s track and field teams competed at the Duke University Invitational. Both teams produced noteworthy performances.

The hot and sunny invitational hosted mostly Division I schools and was a great opportunity for the Eagles to compete against top track and field programs from around the country. The only other school from the Capital Athletic Conference at the meet was York College of Pennsylvania.

Going into the meet, each member of the team had a particular goal in preparation for the CAC. “Duke was a meet where we could focus on improving our individual times,” senior co-captain Jason Driscoll said.

“A lot of the underclassmen were trying to get their CAC qualifying times, while for the veterans on the team Duke is always a good meet to match up against some good competition. The heats are always very competitive and its good experience for running in big heats that some of us will be running in postseason meets,” Driscoll added.

Stand out performances from the meet included freshmen Ali McClelland running the 100 meter dash in 13.04 and 200 meter dash in 16.98. Meanwhile, freshmen teammate Michelle Sutherland ran a season best time in the 400 meter hurdles at 1:54.04. Junior Lynette Humphries ran the 100 meter hurdles at 16.00 seconds and junior Sarah Dawes finished the 800 meter run in 2:24.

On the men’s side, senior Jason Driscoll ran his season best in the 1500 meters at a time of 3:59.16, followed seconds behind by senior Matt Cash at 4:01.57. Cash ran the 800 meter run at 1:54.04. In the 3000 meter steeplechase, sophomore Chris Marino ran a season best time of 9:51.9.

During the past weeks, both teams have been preparing rigorously on the overall team goal of winning the CAC.

“Hard work and dedication on the track and in the classroom have proven to be a successful recipe this year and we all eagerly look forward to conferences in a few weeks,” sophomore John Lilly said.

With next weekends Messiah College Invitational, the only meet before the April 17th CAC Championships at Salisbury University, both the men’s and women’s teams are finalizing their training.

“We are working hard every day with only two weeks left. We will improve times to be able to perform our best at conferences,” senior co-captain Lynette Humphries said.

“Our strengths come in the distance events with the wild card being the jumpers and throwers. Sprints took some losses this year but they still work just as hard as the rest of the team towards the goal…we’re not going to let much step in our way now with the end in sight and still a huge goal to accomplish,” added Lilly.