Eph women dominate Cardinal Invitational
The Williams women had an outstanding day of competition Saturday in the Wesleyan Bacon Field House at the Cardinal Invitational. "Outstanding" might not be the word to use in describing the team's performance - "domination" might be more appropriate to label the four first-place and five second-place finishes.
The womens' success started early with the 55 meter hurdles, one of the shortest contested running events. Sophomore Elise Johnson made it out of the qualifying heat and into the finals, running 8.92 seconds over the hurdles to claim second. Moving on up to the 200 meter dash, junior Halley Smith took third place (27.40), just a half second in front of teammate Elise Johnson who claimed fifth place in a time of 27.90 seconds. In two of the longer sprints, the 500 meter and 800 meter runs, Williams grabbed two second place finishes as freshman Kylie Huckleberry raced to a time if 1:25.05 in the 500, and Meghan Shea '11 ran the 800 in a time of 2:27.04.
As the distances got longer, the Ephs continued their domination. In the 1000 meter run, the sophomore duo of Jess Clarke and Olga Kondratjeva paced together for a 1-2 punch. Kondratjeva eventually pulled away and won in a speedy 3:00.65, with Clarke just behind in 3:04.50. In the mile run, Ceci Davis-Hayes '11 finished strongly to win in a time of 5:18.60. At the halfway mark, she opened up a lead on the field, and one runner tried to go with her, but Ceci held her distance to take the win. Junior Mary Feely came in 10 seconds later in 5:28.97 to claim fourth place. Finally, in the 3000 meter run, three runners came through in succession to sweep places one through three. Sophomore Elly Teitsworth (1st, 10:50.43) put into effect her usual late-race surge to beat out freshman Sarah Weber (2nd, 10:53.67), who had led for most of the race. Tina Meade, with whom Weber had shared the pacework, completed the sweep by placing third in a time of 11:01.40.
The field events held more success for the women as freshman Sara Turner won the high jump. Her leap of 1.60 meters beat the next competitor by a narrow two inches. Freshman Rachel Teitelbaum finished even closer to her nearest competitor as they pole vaulted in a dead heat for second place. Both athletes vaulted 2.89 meters.
Next week the women ephs compete at Tufts University in their final meet before the Division III New England Regional Championships.
