After last weekend’s excellent performance by the women’s team at Army’s Dick Shea Invitational, the Columbia track-and-field team continued its outdoor season this weekend at Princeton’s Sam Howell Invitational and Penn’s Quaker Invitational.
At the Sam Howell Invitational, the Lions faced 16 teams, including Dartmouth, Princeton, and Yale, in distance events. Senior Jeff Randall cleared the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 9:00.64, making the NCAA qualifying time. Randall narrowly edged out Princeton’s Trevor Van Ackeren to place second, behind independent runner Thomas Slosky. The best finish on the women’s side was junior Irena Ossola’s 11th-place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, while Riadha’s Irene Kimaiyo and Shauneen Garrahan took first and second place, respectively.
The Lions had success at Penn on Saturday as well, competing in a large variety of events at the Quaker Invitational. In the men’s 1,500-meter run, two Lions were vying for the top spot-—sophomore Jeff Moriarty and junior Chris Hays. Moriarty took the title in 3:58.66, outpacing Hays by six-tenths of a second. Sophomore Dylan Isaacson and freshman Andrew Buchanan finished sixth and eighth in the same event.
Standout freshmen Kyra Caldwell and Sharay Hale continued the success they had at the Dick Shea Invitational. Caldwell leapt over the 100-meter hurdles in 14.20 seconds for first place, finishing ahead of Harvard’s Dara Wilson. Hale ran the 400-meter dash in 55.40 seconds, which was good for a first-place finish. Caldwell also competed in the 400-meter hurdles, but was unable to replicate last weekend’s performance, finishing in fifth place with a time of 1:04.76, three seconds behind Cornell’s Jessica Weyman, who led the pack.
Columbia won the women’s 4x400-meter relay in 3:49.58, while the men’s side took first as well, ahead of La Salle’s A squad in 3:18.00. Freshman Uzunma Udeh took second in the triple jump with a final distance of 11.97 meters, only one-tenth of a meter behind Penn’s Kathryn Gevitz. In field events, freshman Monique Roberts had an impressive jump of 1.73 meters to win the high jump for the Light Blue.
Next weekend, Columbia will travel to Phoenix, Ariz. for the Sun Angel Track Classic, which will take place from April 10 to April 11.