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` Last weekend, the university track team welcomed other area competitors to their 2010 spring opener.
The home turf seemed to have a positive impact on the team. In only their third outdoor meet, numerous athletes performed admirably, and 14 team members had top five finishes.
In the 5000 meter run, Sarah Tull had a time of 19:09.48 which assured her third place. In the day’s fifth final, the 100 meter hurdles, Michele Frayne ran a 15:51 race, settling into second place behind Lauren Ventrella, the runner from East Stroudsburg who was less than half a second faster than Frayne.
In the men’s 110 meter hurdles, Ryan Griffith placed in the top 10. His teammate Zac Kohler finished four runners behind Griffith.
Although no women ran in the 3000 meter steeplechase, two men competed in the event. Connor Veres took fifth place, and Michael Parker earned a respectable 12th place finish.
In the 10th event, the men’s 4×100 relay runners Keith Ogden, Jeff Robinson, Stephen Boyd, and Derrick Bass posted a time of 42.67 for third place.
In the 1500 meter distance event, Elicia Anderson took top honors with her first place finish. Emily Francisco ran a seventh place finish, while Rebekah Moore, Michelle Blum, and Kate Rhue all just barely missed out on the top 10. On the men’s side, Seth Hibbs took fifth place in a field 42 deep.
In the iconic 100 meter dash, Chrissy Savage took all earning first place, just .04 seconds ahead of her Bloomsburg competitor. Bass, Odgen, and Robinson took sixth, seventh, and eighth place respectively in the same event.
In the 200 meter dash, Savage again had a strong showing, placing second while fellow Marauder Mattie Conaboy rounded out the top 10. The men’s team put three runners into the top 10. Jeff Robinson in third, Bass in fifth, and Odgen in sixth.
Outside the track, Frayne placed first in long jump with a distance of 5.53 meters.
Overall, the day was a huge success for the running Marauders. “Everyone ran really strong for not backing off in our training prior to the meet. We have done all the work at this point to perform our best,” Tull said.
In May, the team heads to West Chester to compete in the PSACs. With eight meets left before the PSACs, the team is already preparing. “We have a lot of really talented athletes on the track team this year and I’m really excited to see how everyone does at PSACs. I don’t think any of us know what we are capable of yet at this point in the season but it’s looking like all of our hard work and training is going to pay off big in the end,” Tull said. Prior to the PSACs, the team will head to South Carolina for the Coastal Carolina Invitational beginning April 12 and lasting through the next day.