SELINSGROVE, Pa. --- The Moravian College women's indoor track and field team won the 2016 Landmark Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships today at host Susquehanna University. The women's team won commandingly with 204 points, which was 85 points better than second place Susquehanna.
"We had more PRs than I can count," commented Head Coach Jesse Baumann, who won Coaching Staff of the Year along with his assistants. "We had dramatically improved our qualifiers for the last few weeks of the season. People stepped up in a huge way, freshmen, upperclassmen, people that weren't projected to get big points all did. It truly was a team effort from athletes and coaches and a proud day for our program."
Leading the women to victory with first place finishes were senior Corinne Glass, who won both the 200 and 400 meter dashes, juniors Jackie Finnegan in the weight throw, Meg Brockett in the 5,000 and 3,000 meter runs, and Kiara Bright in the triple jump, sophomores Melissa Cheong in the long jump, Casie Cronk in the high jump, and Beth Ann Davies in the pole vault and freshman Amari Schooler in the 60 meter hurdles while the 4x400 meter relay team of Glass, and freshmen Anna Osman, Maike Krischer and Tamara Suchan also took home a first place finish. With the wins all 11 of the student-athletes are named to the Landmark Conference First Team, while Glass was named the Track Athlete of the Meet and Cheong was named Co-Field Athlete of the Meet.
On the track, Glass finished the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.01 for first place while senior Christelle Reglas finished sixth with a 27.69. Then in the 400 meter dash Glass also took first with a 58.06, which is the second fastest in school history while Krischer finished fifth with a 1:02.89 and in sixth was Osman running a 1:03.21. In the 5,000 meter run, Brockett ran an 18:13.85 for the win and then took home first in the 3,000 meter run crossing the line at 10:38.51 while teammate Sarah Hughes finished in fourth with a time of 10:46.15. Hughes also finished fourth in the one mile run in 5:15.61.
In the 60 meter hurdles the Hounds swept the first three spots with Schooler leading the pack at 9.48 then junior Rebecca Flitcroft crossed second at 9.77 and senior Meghan Newman took third with a 9.97 while Cheong grabbed a point with a sixth place finish of 10.11. Schooler also placed fourth in the 60 meter dash crossing the line at 8.16. The 4x400 meter team of Osman, Krischer, Suchan and Glass took first with a 4:07.90 while the 4x200 meter team consisting of Reglas, Krischer, Bright and Suchan took third crossing the line at 1:51.64. Completing the day on the track was the 4,000 meter distance medley relay team of junior Larissa Strycharz, sophomore Kirsten Lebo and freshmen Kelly Gonoude and Lian Grow took sixth with a time of 14:00.15.
In the field, events Bright won the triple jump with a leap of 10.70m (35-1.25) while teammates freshman Sarah DeFranco took fourth with a 10.00m (32-9.75) just beating out sophomore Carly Thorpe, who jumped 9.99m (32-9.50). In the long jump Cheong won with a jump of 5.01m (16-5.25) which just beat out Reglas, who jumped 5.00m (16-5) for second. Then in the high jump Cheong took second at a height of 1.57m (5-1.75) only to be beaten out by teammate Cronk, who hopped over a height of 1.62m (5-3.75), which is tied for third in the Moravian record books.
In the pole vault, Davies vaulted a 3.04m (9-11.75) which was enough to beat out teammate senior Chelsea Swick, who cleared a height of 2.89m (9-5.75) while freshman Ashley Dunn cleared 2.44m (8-0) for fourth place. In the weight throw, Finnegan won and broke the school record by almost a foot with 15.06m (49-5) throw while Abbey Clark took second with a throw of 13.81m (45-3.75) and sophomore Maggie Heft finished fifth with a 13.55m (44-5.5) toss. In the shot put sophomore Ciara Stewart claimed second place with an 11.19m (36-8.50) put. In fourth was Clark, who threw 11.07m (36-4) while Heft took fifth with 10.54m (34-7).
The Greyhounds will compete at the ECAC Indoor Championships on Friday and Saturday March 4 and 5 at Ocean Breeze Complex in Staten Island, N.Y.
