On Thursday, April 26 at the historic Penn Relays in Philadelphia, Catherine Campbell ’12 held her own in an elite field. She placed 19th in her section of the 5000 meters, finishing first of the D-III runners with a final time of 17:12.51. The rest of the men’s and women’s track & field teams competed on Saturday, April 28 at Shippensburg University for the Paul Kaiser Invitational.

The men saw some outstanding performances in the throwing events. Mike Tucker ’12 launched the shot 14.42m (47-3.5), good for 7th place. His co-captain, Corwyn Gordon ’12, took 11th in the javelin. Gordon’s throw went 50.20m (164-8.25), which is his season best distance and the ninth farthest in the Centennial Conference this spring.

The running performances were nothing to scoff at either. In the 1500 meters, seven out of nine Red Devils competing set lifetime bests. The two fastest times came from Ryan Steinbock ’14 and Robbie Sansevere ‘14. Steinbock, sat in last place for the first half of the race before kicking into fifth place, where he finished as the first Division III competitor in a time of 3:57.33; Sansevere was three spots back in 4:00.17. Both times are personal records by about a third of a second. Steinbock holds onto his spot in fifth on the Dickinson all-time list, and Sansevere moves up from ninth to eighth.

For the women, the best performances of the day undoubtedly came in the distances. Annie Dyroff ‘14 won the 3000m steeplechase in 11 minutes, 39.25 seconds. That time ranks third in the conference and is actually four seconds faster than what she ran in her stunning third place finish at last year’s conference meet. In the 1500m, Mary Nolte ’13 and Emily Miller ‘14 took third and eighth, respectively. Nolte ran dead-even splits of 76, 76, 76 seconds, followed by a furious kick of 54 seconds for the final 300 meters en route to a time of 4:44.74. Miller was less than four seconds back in 4:48.33. They now rank 7th and 12th in the conference (faced with a similar ranking entering last year’s conference meet, they finished 5th and 9th), and Nolte’s time is a personal best.

The women performed strongly in the field as well. Co-captain Leslie Ward ’12 tossed the discus 32.37m (106-2.25) for 11th place, the eighth best distance in the Centennial Conference this spring. Vivian Butali ’13 was eighth in the triple jump, earning a season best with a hop, skip, and jump of 10.70m (35-1.25), which is the 4th longest in the conference.

Both teams look to improve upon their indoor finishes (second for the women, third for the men), and contend with Johns Hopkins and Haverford for conference titles next weekend at Ursinus. The men are two-time defending champions.