Photo By Evie Stiner
By Matt Guear
The River Hawk track & field teams had nineteen first place finishes at the annual Jim Taylor Invitational on Saturday at Doug Arthur Stadium.
Junior Remi Acord took home two first place finishes in the long jump and triple jump. Her triple jump of 11.86 meters tied the outdoor school record and was enough to qualify her for the AARTFC regional meet in May.
“I just wanted to keep the momentum going from coming back from nationals in Virginia and kind of just continue to improve and get better for the spring season,” said Acord. In regard to the outdoor triple jump record, she said, “I know that I can do it and I know that I’ll continue to get better and improve and eventually get it.”
Acord also competed in the 100-meter dash, which was won by senior Alexa Rine with a time of 12.50 seconds.
However, because Acord rarely competes in track events, her sprinting spikes were outdated. Luckily for her, teammate Chloe Yoder hooked her up with a fresh pair of spikes that did the trick.
“My teammate gave me new spikes for the race which was very nice and I’m very grateful for that,” said Acord.
Yoder did well for herself on Saturday too, coming in first place in the 200-meter dash as well as the 100-meter hurdles, with times of 25.45 and 14.19 seconds, respectively. Her time in the 100-meter hurdles is currently fifth in the country for all NCAA Division 3 women.
In other women’s field events, senior Maggie Boyer took first in the shot put and hammer throw while coming second in the discus. Boyer’s hammer throw of 47.36 qualified her for regionals. Sophomore Rebecca Cree took the discus for the River Hawks. Senior Delaynee McLeod and sophomore Ainslee Binkley placed first and second in the javelin throw.
On the men’s side, three seniors all took first place and qualified for regionals at the same time. Bryce Ellinger won high jump, Isaiah Blatt took pole vault and Keith Green III came out on top in triple jump.
Senior Tyler Hauk came in first in the discus throw with a regional-qualifying throw of 44.53 meters and sophomore Tim Kizis won the javelin throw.
The Susquehanna men fared well in several track events, as well. Freshman Mason Winslow beat out fellow River Hawk, junior Elliott Davis, by just .01 seconds to take the 200-meter dash. In fact, the River Hawks occupied the entire top five in that race.
Junior TJ Grenda won the 800-meter run, while junior Brandon Zimmerman came in first and qualified for the regional meet in the 110 hurdles with a time of 14.90 seconds. Zimmerman also ran in the 400 hurdles but was barely beaten out by junior Ben Bulger, who took first in the event.
“I think we have a really good group of guys, a lot of guys that run really fast times and a lot of guys who are really good hurdlers,” said Bulger. “Just the fact that we’re going against each other in practice every day pushing each other, that shows on the track. It’s kind of an iron sharpens iron thing.”
For their next event, SU will host the River Hawk Multi and Invite meet, which starts on Thursday and runs through Saturday.
