The Georgetown women’s indoor-track team debuted in the Navy Lid Lifter meet Tuesday night at the Wesley Brown Field House in Annapolis, Md. Georgetown finished third overall behind Navy and University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
The Hoyas impressed in middle-distance events as well as the 4×400-meter and 4×800-meter relays, where they finished in first place.Freshmen Piper Donaghu and Kennedy Weisner topped the charts in the 1000m event with respective times of 2:55.52 and 2:55.76. Junior Jocelyn Hubbard was not far behind with a time of 2:56.78 to notch the third-place spot.
The performances from the freshmen impressed Director of Track and Field Patrick Henner.
“Piper Donaghu won the thousand and came back and ran a very good split on the 4×400 relay that we won,” Henner said. “I was also very pleased with two other freshmen: Jasmine Robinson, who ran very well for her first 500 ever and came back and ran the fastest split for us on the 4×400 and … Jody-Ann Knight had a great start in the 200.”
Junior Samantha Nadel finished fourth overall (3:00.23) in the 1000m event, with sophomore Stefanie Kurgatt and senior Kristen Walsh following her with times of 3:01.35 and 3:02.16, respectively. Sophomore Sabrina Southerland finished first in the mile with a time of 4:59.21. Junior Heather Martin finished second (4:59.57), and freshman Autumn Eastman finished third (5:02.66). Robinson and sophomore Ebony McKeever placed high in the 500m dash: Robinson finished fifth with a time of 1:19.18, while McKeever finished seventh with a time of 1:19.97.
While the Blue and Gray certainly found success in the meet, its main priority was to transition from the cross-country season to the indoor-track season and introduce athletes who did not compete earlier in the year.
“The approach to the meet was to give our athletes who didn’t get a chance to race at the end of the cross-country season something to look forward to [and] also to get the first meet out of the way,” Henner said. “Our sprinters and jumpers hadn’t competed all fall, so it was a chance for them to get out there and get a sense of the situation.”
While the team seemed to transition easily into the second portion of the season, the quick turnaround from the end of cross-country does present a challenge.
“It’s a little more difficult for the coaches, actually — we just finished a great cross-country season,” Henner said. “You want a little bit of a mental break, but it’s fun — we had a lot of fun. It was good for our athletes to get out there.”
Come January, the meets will become more formal, and larger majorities of the Georgetown cross-country and track program will participate. Distance runners who raced during cross-country are still resting, but they will begin to partake in the races later on in the season.
“Most of our athletes who ran in the full cross-country season, and especially those who ran in the NCAA championships, are still resting right now, and they won’t come back until January,” Henner said.
Henner noted that at this point in the season, it is more important to introduce runners who have not participated in formal competition thus far.
“It was time for them to get back out on the track and start racing,” he explained.
This was the Hoyas’ last meet of the calendar year. Their next meet will not be until Jan. 10 at the Father Diamond Invitational in Fairfax, Va.
