Thursday and Friday, the Seattle University outdoor track and field team battled it out at the Bryan Clay Invitational in Azusa, Calif. to start off a long weekend of competition.
Many student-athletes set outdoor personal records and finished in the top of their sections, and a school record was even broken.
Katie Fleming broke the outdoor school record in the 400 meter hurdles – a record she had set herself last year – with a time of 64.16. That time gave her a second-place finish in her heat, and a 28th-place finish overall in a huge field of athletes.
Abby Wachter set a personal record in the same event with a time of 65.11.
Fleming also went on to record a personal best in the triple jump with a distance of 11.21 meters.
Janzen Aguilar-Nelson had a break-out performance on Friday in the 400 meter dash.
In that event, Aguilar-Nelson finished first in his heat and 13th overall with a personal best time of 48.45.
Mandie Maddux had two stand-out performances in field events on Friday.
In the long jump, Maddux finished sixth with a personal best jump of 5.17 meters, and in the high jump, she tied her school record height at 1.65 meters. She tied for fourth place in the high jump, and 14th overall based on jumps.
The distance runners really had some fun over the two days at the Bryan Clay Invite.
“The majority of distance runners ran personal records, and they all ran strong races,” head coach Trisha Steidl said. “Team-wide, there were a lot of…great performances.”
On Thursday, the 5,000 meter runners dominated the field.
In their heat, Matthew Seidel (14:39.22), Chay Weaver (14:40.55), and Ben Monk (14:41.10), took the top three spots in respective finishes, and all set personal records. In the same heat, Baxter Arguinchona (14:48.66) claimed the sixth-place spot, and also set a personal record.
In a different heat in the same event, Collin Olson took second place with a personal best time of 15:08.16.
The women’s side was no different.
Elena Smith, a master at the longer distances, finished in first place in her heat with a new personal record time of 17:16.54.
In another heat, Lindsay Frederick claimed third place with her personal best time of 18:07.19.
Then, on Friday, it was the 1,500 meter runners’ turn to dominate.
All of the women running in this event set personal records. Each Redhawk ran in a different heat, and each placed in the top 5 of their heat.
Lila Rice (4:34.68) finished in third place in her heat, Kyla Danforth (4:38.16) finished in first, Moira O’Connor Lenth (4:38.85) finished in fifth, and Johanna Erickson (4:45.26) finished in first.
In the same event, the men also ran in different heats.
Jacques Hebert set a personal best time of 3:53.82, taking first place in his heat, while Louis Rodrigues also set a personal record with a time of 3:54.77 while claiming fifth place.
With so many student-athletes dominating, Steidl had a hard time picking just one to brag about.
Not a bad spot to be in.
“It’s hard to highlight a particular individual from the past two days because so many ran so well,” Steidl said. “I started writing a list, and realized I had something about everyone, so erased it.”
After two days of strong performances, Steidl is obviously happy with her team.
She may not have been able to brag about one individual, but, even better, she couldn’t help but brag about the entire team.
“I saw a lot of heart and determination over the past two days, which resulted in the strongest overall meet performance in my 10 years coaching here, and probably in our program’s history.”
The Redhawks continue this weekend in California at another meet – taking on the Long Beach State Invitational on Saturday.