The men’s and women’s track and field teams headed up to the Armory Center for the NYU Invitational this past weekend.
About halfway into the season, both teams showed they are already in mid-season form.
On the women’s side, reigning Centennial Conference Athlete of the Week Annie Gutierrez ran a time of 9.21 seconds to place third in the 60-meter hurdles.
In addition to the hurdles, Gutierrez re-broke the school record she set last week in the pole vault, clearing a height of 3.74 meters for first place.
Freshman standout Marissa Hsu took second place in the 60-meter dash, clocking in at 8.01 seconds. Hsu also set a new freshman record in the long jump with a distance of 5.26 meters.
To cap off the record breaking performances, sophomore Ella Baran ran a time of 9:56.17 in the 3000-meter, finishing 37 seconds ahead of the next runner and shattering the meet record. Runners Felicia Körner, Rebecca Grusby, Julianna Lazzari, Callie Jones and Anna Stouffer kept a tight pack, taking places three to seven in the mile.
In the 400-meter, freshman Helena Hall-Thomsen finished fourth, followed behind ny teammates Alexandra Damron and Ashley Tyburski, who both placed within the top 10 runners.
Continuing with her success, Hall-Thomsen and sophomore Chinaza Nwankpa put up more points for the team as they ran the fastest 200-meter times for the team this season at 26.71 and 26.62 seconds respectively.
The Distance Medley Relay team of Körner, Dana Andrews, Jones and Ross finished in first place by over seven seconds with a time of 12:35.37.
On the field, sophomore Cherease Lamm took third in the Triple Jump at a distance of 10.81 meters. Lamm also took fifth in the long jump at 5.13 meters.
With the strong effort, the women’s team was able to take a resounding victory, finishing with 122 points and a gap of 74 points from the second place team.
The success seemed to be contagious, as the men’s team dominated as well.
Star senior Matthew Su took care of business in the 60-meter dash, taking fifth place with a time of 7.16. Su also placed second in the long jump, right behind teammate Justin Canedy. Canedy took the gold with a leap of 6.95 meters.
On top of the first place finish, Canedy took sixth in the 60-meter hurdles and fourth in the high jump.
Sophomore sprinter Nathaniel Amoah ran a personal season best time of 51.02 in the 400-meter dash, good enough for an 11th place finish out of 74 runners.
Freshman distance runner Matthew Kleiman got second place in the 3000-meter with 8:34.33, just a 0.3 second gap from first.
The mile had four Hopkins runners finish in the top six. Freshman Declan Hines led the pack with a second place finish and a time of 4:17.01.
Following along were runners Sean Laidlaw, Andrew King and Daniel Chen who took fourth through sixth respectively.
When asked about the pack running, senior Andrew King offered his insights on its effects.
“It really helps to have all the other guys out there with you as a source of energy during the race. We pick each other up when we need to make a move on the pack,” King said.
This team spirit was apparent in the Distance Medley Relay (DMR) crew of Chen, Elias Boussouf, Laidlaw and Hines.
Running a time of 10:27.68, the DMR team broke the meet record by a margin of 0.04 seconds.
The men’s team went on to take the title, scoring 85.5 points and scoring 24.5 points higher than second place.
Looking ahead into the season, King gave his thoughts on his training and how the team plans on moving forward with this momentum.
“I think of indoor and outdoor track as kind of one season, so in my mind it’s still early in my training cycle to be thinking of peaking,” King said. “We’re all going to focus extra hard in recovery in the upcoming weeks but in terms of training we still have a lot of work to do.”
Both teams go back to work this weekend in Boston, Mass., at the David Hemery Invitational and in Selinsgrove, Pa., at the Susquehanna invitational.
