Lafayette’s men’s and women’s track and field teams lost the overall event in a dual meet against Lehigh on Sunday, April 8. The men’s team beat Lehigh by a score of 113-87, while the women’s side fell to Lehigh by a score of 128-75.
“Our results were decent compared to past years,” senior Dave McGriff said. “There was not as big of a margin of defeat as past years.”
Lehigh has a history of being a tough opponent for Lafayette, with their men’s team’s lowest finish this year being fourth and their women’s team’s lowest finish being eighth. Even though the team did not come out victorious, McGriff had a strong performance. In the hammer event, he threw for his personal record of 57.31m, placing first, and then placed first in the discus event with a distance of 50.07m.
Other highlights of the meet included three women’s track runners winning their respective events. Sophomore Crosby Spiess won the 400m dash, junior Caroline Harmon won the 1500m run and freshman Kelsie McGlynn won the 100m dash. Freshman Sam Fishbein has his personal record in the hammer, with a distance of 14.34m, finishing second behind McGriff.
“We are normally a competitive sprint and throws program, so we did pretty well in that,” McGriff said. “We did well in the sprint relays and I got it done in the circle throws. They distanced us to death because that’s what they do.”
The extreme weather made conditions difficult for the athletes.
“It was super windy and crappy outside, so it was hard for anybody to really run well,” McGriff said. “It’s really tough because as much as track is competitive relative to who can run faster, it’s hard to run as fast as you can when it’s really windy and cold. It’s all about relative competitiveness. You cannot necessarily toss the overall quality of your event out the window, but it’s not necessarily what matters.”
The track and field team will send athletes to meets at Bucknell, Moravian and Kutztown for the next wave of competitions.
Disclaimer: Amy Hewlett ’19 is a member of the track and field team and is the sports editor. She did not edit the content of this article.
