CHAMPS! Ithaca Women Win 13th E8 Title

2/11/2017 9:30:00 PM

COMPLETE RESULTS | PHOTO GALLERY 

UTICA, N.Y. – The nationally-ranked No. 5 Ithaca College women's track & field team claimed its 10th consecutive Empire 8 Conference title, and 13th overall, at the Indoor Championships hosted by Utica College inside the Hutton Dome on Saturday afternoon.

Ithaca dominated the championship with 218 points, which was 134 points better than the runners-up from St. John Fisher College, which totaled 84 points. Nazareth College took third with 63 points, followed by Utica in fourth with 42 points. Stevens Institute of Technology notched 35 points to take fifth, and the field rounded out with Houghton College (16) and Alfred University (six).

All athletes, individual or relay, which finished first or second overall, were named all-conference honorees. Scoring was accumulated by top six placements.

Senior Katherine Pitman highlighted the championship, as she was named Field Athlete of the Meet, after another record-breaking performance in the pole vault. Pitman, who just last week set the NCAA Division III record in the event, surpassed that mark on Saturday with a cleared height of 4.25 meters. She now holds the second highest mark, indoor or outdoor, in Division III history, as 4.27 meters is the all-time record.

Sophomore Lusmer Quintana won the 60-meter dash in a time of 7.97 seconds. Classmate Emilie Mertz took top honors in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:19.27. Junior Amber Edwards set a facility record in the 60-meter hurdles in 9.12 seconds to placed first overall.

Senior Brandy Smith won a pair of events on Saturday – the shot put (12.52 meters) and weight throw (16.38 meters) to notch her fourth and fifth Empire 8 Indoor titles. Smith topped the weight throw field my more than 1.3 meters.

Freshman Alexandra Rheaume was a runner-up in the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.09 seconds, which was just .06 seconds from first. Rheaume also came in second in the 400-meter dash with a time of 58.08 seconds.

In the high jump, freshman Estelle Yedynak took second with a mark of 1.60 meters, while junior Brianna Hayes was third at 1.55 meters. Senior Natalie Meyer also cleared 1.55 meters but finished sixth due to total attempts.

After Pitman in the pole vault, freshman Beth Cripps was the runner-up with a cleared mark of 3.65 meters and senior Amanda Zaput finished third at 3.10 meters.

Junior Caitlin Noonan was the runner-up in the weight throw with a mark of 15.06 meters, while senior Francesca Boylan followed in third at 14.30 meters.

Fisher's Lauren Wiard placed first in the long jump with a distance of 5.16 meters, while sophomoremHaley Brust would take the runner up spot with a jump of 5.14 meters.
 
In the 60-meter hurdles, Tayler Dence took second place, setting a new Fisher record and personal record with a time of mark of 9.31. Melissa Vaughn's time of 9.60 was good for third place.

Dence and Wiard would also compete in the 60-meter dash, Wiard taking second place with a time of 8.07 and setting a new personal record in the premils at 8.04. Dence took third at 8.09, setting a freshman record.

Dence managed another top-three finish and broke a personal record in the 200-meter dash where she placed third with a time of 26.63, breaking yet another freshman record. 

Nazareth's women's team had several strong showings, paced by junior Emily Soeder, who broke her own school record in the high jump with a first-place leap of 1.65 meters (5 feet, 5 inches). Nazareth also finished 1-2 in the 5,000-meter run with senior Emily Thompson and junior Claire Ludington posting times of 18:41.01 and 18:46.16 respectively.

Other highlights included a first-place finish in the 4 x 400-meter with the foursome of Cassie Ellis, Sarah Williams, Maria Staehr and Samantha Goble posting a winning time of 4:09.79.

Staehr also competed for Nazareth in the distance medley relay that finished second in 13:05.42. She was joined byEileen Shea, Andrea Larnard and Ludington.

Utica senior Jade Jenkins earned the conference crown in the triple jump as she broke 11.00 meters for the first time in her career on Saturday. 

Utica's MaKenna Cooley set a new school-record in the women's 800 meter dash with a time of 2:22.22 to earn a third place finish in the event for the Pioneers. Sophomore Kaitlyn Stinson posted a personal record in the women's 5000 meter as she registered a third place finish with a time of 18:49.35.

Utica's 4x400 meter relay of Breanna Featherson , Tiffany Evans, Alexis Albano andMaKenna Cooley posted a time of 4:12.13 and took home third place for the Pioneers.

Stevens freshman Gina Dello Russo claimed first-place finishes in the 200 and 400-meter dashes to earn Track Athlete of the Meet honors. Dello Russo's time in the 200, 26.03 seconds, broke her own school record and is ranked 25th in the NCAA. Her time in the 400, 57.81. marked a personal-best time and set a new school record, and is also the eighth-fastest time in the NCAA.

For Houghton, the quartet of Ella Hotchkiss, Emma Fox, Hannah Harrison, and Rachel Hummel led the way with a 3^rd place finish in the distance medley relay in a time of 13:16.69.  

Nikki Garns barely missed the finals in the 60m dash, so she made up for it by running an indoor personal best and near school record time of 27.79 seconds in the 200m to finish 4th.

The top performer for the Saxons was junior Brynn Hyde. She earned fourth place in the weight throw with a huge personal best-breaking toss of 14.07 meters, shattering her previous personal best of 12.95 meters and, the school record of 13.06 meters set by Emily Moorehead in 2010.