The men’s and women’s track and field teams engaged in a little double duty last weekend as the squads split and competed in the Penn Relays and the Lions Invitational at the College of New Jersey.
Both meets served as precursors to the two-day Atlantic Ten Conference Outdoor Championship, which begins Saturday at the University of Massachusetts.
Last year, the men’s squad tied its program best finish at the A-10s by placing fifth out of the 11 teams at the event, while the women finished sixth among 12 teams.
In their final tune-ups before the conference championship meet, the Owls had two individual performers – one on the men’s side and one on the women’s – meet IC4A and ECAC standards, respectively, while two women’s relay teams also qualified for the ECACs over the weekend.
At the Penn Relays, sophomore Brad McFadden ran the 400m hurdles in 59.53 Friday to meet IC4A standards. For the women, the 4×400 relay team met ECAC qualifying time with a run of 3:48.88.
While the Penn Relays continued through Saturday, the Owls sent athletes to the Lions Invitational where junior Carlleen Allison ran a season-best time of 56.20 to hit the ECAC standard. The women’s 4×100 team also qualified for the ECACs, which will take place over two days starting Friday, May 16 in Princeton, N.J. The IC4A Championship will be held at the same time in the same location.
Besides the ECAC and IC4A qualifiers, the Owls had three top 20 finishes in events at the Penn Relays.
Sophomore Tim Boeni lunged 22-10.5 feet to finish 14th in the long jump, while junior Amanda Cole placed third in the hammer throw with a toss of 176-10. The women’s sprint relay team of Allison, freshman Paris Williams, senior Cheryl Anscombe and senior Noelle McKenzie finished 18th in their event with a time of 4:04.57.
The Owls fared better at the Lions Invitational. Specifically, the women.
Freshman Tashima Stephens won the 800m with a time of 2:17.10 while sophomore Sequoia McBall finished on top in the triple jump with a leap of 11.33m.
Anscombe, freshman Selena Haggins, sophomores Brittany McRae and Daisy Amato, and juniors Devon Dupont Jasselle Cruz, and senior Kimberlyn Hill all registered top three finishes in different events.
The men had nine top 10 finishes at the Lions invite, including a first place finish by freshman Bob Keough, who tossed 48.68m in the hammer throw.
Coming into the year, the men’s team was picked to finish eighth in the A-10 while the women were slated to finish seventh in a preseason conference coaches poll.
Tyson McCloud can be reached at tyson@temple.edu.
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