The Georgetown track and field teams opened their outdoor seasons Saturday, March 23, in Philadelphia at the Penn Challenge. The season did not get off to a great start overall as the men’s team finished in fifth place and the women’s team finished in seventh. However, both teams showed signs of promise in specific events.

Both the men’s and women’s teams performed well in the steeplechase event, with a number of freshmen making their outdoor debuts. The steeplechase event is an obstacle race around the track in which athletes jump onto and off of beams during the run. The Hoya women claimed the top four spots in the 2,000-meter steeplechase, with freshman Katie Dammer first, junior Meg Mathison second, freshman Katherine Modrall third and freshman Rachel Sessa fourth.

The Hoya men saw three members of their team place in the top five of the 2,000m steeplechase. Graduate student Christian Liddell finished in first place, followed by junior Eion Nohilly in second place and freshman Price Owens in fourth place.

Freshman Alyssa Aldridge gave the women’s team another top-three finish by earning third place in the 3,000m run with a time of 10:08.94.

Sophomore Lawrence Leake, who earned his first All-American honor at the NCAA championships two weeks ago, put on another impressive performance last weekend. Leake raced to second place in the 400m hurdles for a time of 55.78.

Sophomore Nate Alleyne placed fourth for the men in the 400m dash, notching a time of 49.05. In the 100m dash, sophomore Denzell Brown earned fifth place with a time of 11.183. Brown’s teammate, sophomore Josiah Laney, raced him neck and neck to cross the line just .003 seconds after.

Picking up another pair of top-five finishes, junior Johnathan Chavez placed fourth, and freshman Rusty Kujdych placed fifth in the 3,000m run.

The 4x400m relay team of Alleyne, Leake, sophomore Kino Cheltenham, and junior Kenneth Rowe closed out the day’s events with a first-place finish. The quartet clocked a time of 3:16.72.

The Blue and Gray will split into two groups next weekend to travel to Gainesville, Fla., for the Florida Relays at the University of Florida and to Stanford, Calif., for the Stanford Invitational held by Stanford University. The Florida Relays will start Thursday, March 28, and the Stanford Invitational will begin the next day, Friday, March 29.