ST. PAUL, Minn. – With two weeks to go before the MIAC Outdoor Championships, the Carleton College women's track & field team won three events at the Janis Rider/Doug Bolstorff Invitational hosted by Macalester College on Saturday. The Knights took fourth out of nine teams at the meet.
"The results demonstrated that the team is peaking at the right time for the MIAC Championships," said Carleton head coach
Donna Ricks. "Once again the team demonstrated it is mentally tough and handled the elements. I'm excited about all of the personal bests achieved today and how they accepted the challenge and put forth some tremendous efforts."
Helen Cross (So./Nederland, Colo./Nederland) won the 5000-meter run with a personal-best time of 17:41.03 and led a 1-2-4-5 finish for the Knights. Cross appeared to get stronger with each lap and posted a 14-second margin of victory.
Phoebe Ward (So./Dobbs Ferry, N.Y./Dobbs Ferry) was the runner up with a new PR of 17:55.18. Next across was a racer from the University of Minnesota (D-I) followed by
Rainey Tilley (Jr./South Pasadena, Calif./South Pasadena) and
Allegra Pihlaja (Sr./Duluth, Minn./Duluth East), who posted personal-best times of 18:59.12 and 19:07.47, respectively.
Nayeli Williams (Fy./Minneapolis, Minn./Brooklyn Center) won the long jump by soaring a career-best 5.47 meters (17 feet, 11.50 inches). She had the two top jumps of the competition and leapt more than eight inches farther than she has previously gone at Carleton.
Sydney Marsh (Sr./Austin, Minn./Austin) twice measured 5.30 meters (17 feet, 4.75 inches) as she was the runner-up in that event.
Carleton's top entry in the 4x400-meter relay picked up the win as Williams,
Amy Kropp (Sr./Logan, Utah/Logan),
Alice Cutter (So./New York, N.Y./Poly Prep Day School), and Marsh combined on a time of 4:13.40. The Knights trailed St. Scholastica by about 7 meters doing into the anchor leg, and Marsh turned in great lap to give Carleton a 3.5-second margin of victory.
Marsh added a third-place result in the pole vault by clearing 3.17 meters (10 feet, 4.75 inches).
Gabrielle Evans (Sr./Minnetonka, Minn./Minnetonka) cleared the same height but finished seventh due to earlier misses.
Grace Blanchette (Jr./Honolulu , Hawaii/Punahou) added a runner-up result in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 15.88, eclipsing her previous personal best by 0.01 second.
The Knights turned in five addition top-five results:
•
Riley Roberts (So./Bloomington, Ind./Bloomington) took fifth in both the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes at 13.46 and 28.23, respectively.
• Carleton's other entry in the 4x400 relay placed fifth at 4:37.68.
•
Neenah Bosman (So./Hugo, Minn./White Bear Lake) finished fifth in the hammer throw with a heave of 39.65 meters (130 feet, 1 inch).
•
Julia Johnston (Sr./Winchester, Mass./Winchester) placed fifth in the javelin throw with a toss of 25.28 meters (82 feet, 11 inches).
Up Next for the Knights
Carleton will send a contingent to the Tommie Twilight on Wednesday, May 4 at the University of St. Thomas. That meet starts at 3:30 p.m. The Knights will then host the MIAC Decathlon/Heptathlon on May 5-6 at Laird Stadium.
