The Georgetown track and field teams saw many successes last weekend, including three personal record-setting performances along with six top-five finishes among hundreds of runners at the Valentine Invitational.
The women competed in eight events Friday, Feb. 14 in the invitational hosted by Boston University, earning four top-five finishes. The men’s team snagged two top-five finishes with runners in 10 events Saturday, Feb. 15.
Freshman Maya Drayton claimed half of the women’s four top-five finishes in the 60-meter dash invitational preliminary rounds and finals. Drayton qualified for finals with a second-place finish at 7.62 seconds and ultimately claimed third place in the finals with a time of 7.67 seconds. She closed out her day finishing at 24.68 in the 200-meter dash to take 20th place in a field of 294 other competitors.
Junior Baylee Jones earned a fourth-place finish for the Hoyas in the 3,000-meter run with a personal best of 9:46.70 in the event. The finish topped her last performance in the 3,000-meter at the Penn State National by nearly seven seconds.
The women’s final top-five finish came from sophomore Eni Akinniyi, who grabbed fifth place in the triple jump finals with a distance of 11.43 meters.
Sophomore Sami Corman rounded out the day for the Blue and Gray by earning a top-20 finish for the women’s squad with a 4:40.94 mile to place 17th, outrunning 233 of her opponents.
The next day, the men saw their two top-five finishes come from personal bests by freshmen Andrew Robinson and senior Kenny Rowe. Robinson finished fourth in the 60-meter dash with a personal best of 7 seconds flat, trailing the third-place finisher by eight-thousandths of a second.
Rowe topped his previous record in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:49.55, earning fifth place overall in a field of 291 runners. Junior Ruach Padhal followed closely, finishing in 1:50.88 to claim 13th place in the event.
The men’s team brought home an additional eight top-20 finishes on the day behind strong performances from upperclassmen. Junior Nate Alleyne crossed the line in 21.78 in the 200-meter dash, besting a Columbia opponent by three-thousandths of a second to earn 18th.
Junior Lawrence Leake grabbed ninth place in the 400-meter dash with a time of 48.14, followed by Rowe in 12th place.
Freshman Theo Woods claimed 6th place in the 1,000-meter run, finishing in 2:25.29.
Senior Matthew Bouthillete and sophomore Rusty Kujdych both competed in the 5,000-meter run for the Hoyas. Bouthillete finished 11th overall in 14:08.19, followed closely behind by Kujdych who finished three seconds later in 14th place.
Graduate student Spencer Brown tallied the team’s final top-20 finish, narrowly racing into the 19th spot with a 4:01.76 mile in an event of 342 runners.
Unlike its five first-place finishes at the Penn State National two weeks ago, the Hoyas failed to find a top spot this past weekend. Aside from its six top-five finishes and few top-20 spots, the Blue and Gray struggled in the remaining events and saw wide time spreads between its first and subsequent finishers in each event. The men struggled with consistency in some events, including a spread of runners in the 3000-meter that placed from 59th to 177th in the race. Similarly, the women posted several finishers in the lower end of competitors, including a 105th-place finish in the 200-meter dash.
Competition continues for the Hoyas this upcoming weekend. Select members of the men’s team will travel to Winston-Salem, N.C., on Friday, Feb. 21 for the JDL Invitational. The women will compete in the Alex Wilson Invitational hosted by Notre Dame on Saturday, Feb. 22 in South Bend, Ind.
