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Devil Women Claim Second at Little Three Championship
Photo by James Rasp
The Dickinson women's track & field team placed second in the Little Three Championship to the hosts this Saturday afternoon at Franklin & Marshall. F&M won the meet by a score of 148-131. Gettysburg was third with 103. The Devils' depth in some events was not rewarded in the dual-meet scoring system which differs from multiple team invitational meets. However, the Red Devils did turn in some outstanding individual performances on the day.
That depth was on display in the 1500 meters, where behind national qualifier Sheena Crawley of F&M, Dickinson women took the next four places. On a cold and windy day, it was no surprise that the race leaders went out at the exceedingly pedestrian pace of 87 seconds for the first 400 meters. What was surprising was the speed the Devil women flaunted in the final third of the race. Taylor Ludman (Willow Street, Pa./Solanco), Kim Powell (Canton, Conn./Canton), and Mary Nolte (Laurel, Md./Atholton) all ran their final 300 meters in close to 50 seconds to finish second, third, and fourth. Ludman ran 5:02.13, Powell was clocked at 5:03.08, and Nolte finished in 5:03.79.
Junior Catherine Campbell (Carlisle, Pa./Trinity) was fifth, just over a second abreast in 5:05.17. Powell also ran to second in the 800, behind Crawley, while Ludman and Nolte doubled back on the winning 4x800 relay. Also in the distances, first-years Annie Dyroff (Wayne, Pa./Radnor) and Emily Knight (Lewisburg, Pa./Lewisburg) went one-two in the 3000 meter steeplechase, and Emily Miller (Lenhartsville, Pa./Kutztown) won the 5000, running 18:51.03 to take first by less than half a second over a Gettysburg runner. Dickinson women took six of the top eight places in that 5k, including a personal best of 19:27.30 for first-year Sara Patterson (Houston, Texas/St. John's School) in third place.
In the field and sprints, sophomore Vivian Butali (Silver Spring, Md./National Cathedral) did a yeoman's work, competing in six events on the day. She won the triple jump in a wind-hindered 10.18m (33' 4.75"), placed third in the 200 in 28.31 seconds for a large personal best, and picked up second in her first collegiate 100, sprinting to a time of 13.74. Fellow sophomore Justine Davenport (Laurel, Md./The Madeira School) beat her local counterparts in the shot put with a winning throw of 9.66m (31'8.5"). First-year Chelsea Johnson (Wallingford, Pa./Strath Haven) competed in four events, with her best performance coming with a second place leap of 1.45m (4'9") in the high jump.
The Dickinson women's track team will be back in action next weekend. A small number of distance runners will compete at Princeton on Friday night, April 1st, while the rest of the team heads to Muhlenberg on Saturday, April 2nd to compete at the venue that will be the site of the 2011 Centennial Conference Championships.
