The Georgetown track and field team competed at the George Mason Invitational this past weekend in Fairfax, Va. The women’s team placed fifth overall with 55 points, while the men took 12th with 15 points. Director of Track and Field and Cross-Country Patrick Henner was pleased with his athletes’ performances.
“I was very happy. [All-American graduate student] Amanda Kimbers dropped down and went 11:71 in the 100 meter and then came back in her first real 400m of the season,” Henner said. “She ran on the 4-x-400m, which we won, and split 53.9, which is telling me that she’s going to run a lot faster run on that relay. Also, her 200 time can drop down a lot more.”
Kimbers placed third in the preliminaries for the 100m dash, but did not run in the finals in order to save her legs for the 4-x-400m relay.
“She missed a whole year of competing with a hip injury and she’s a little bit sore,” Henner said. “Again, she ran so well in the preliminaries, we didn’t want to risk her getting an injury by having her sprint too much.”
In the 200m dash, junior All-American Deseree King took 12th place with a time of 24.83. She placed fourth in the 400m dash with a time of 55.08.
In the women’s 800m, Georgetown tripled up, taking fifth, sixth and seventh with runs by graduate student Rachel Schneider, senior Becca DeLoache and freshman Sabrina Southerland. Junior All-American Katrina Coogan took fourth place as an unattached athlete with a time of 2:07.91. The reason Coogan is running unattached, Henner said, is to allow her to have one more year of NCAA eligibility.
“Katrina Coogan is going to redshirt this outdoor season,” Henner said. “It’s basically a long-term investment. We think Katrina can potentially be one of the country’s very best, or even — I don’t want to jinx her — an NCAA champion. She’s still a relatively young runner; she never even ran cross-country in high school. She’s very good now; she’s one of the country’s best right now, but we feel like in two more years she can maybe have a shot at winning an NCAA title.”
Coogan ran again in the 1500m and took first place with a time of 4:21.73. Junior All-American Andrea Keklak took third with a time of 4:22.60, junior All-American Hannah Neczypor took sixth with a time of 4:25.90, sophomore Samantha Nadel took ninth with 4:26.28 and sophomore Rachel Paul placed 10th with 4:26.72.
Freshman Bobbie Burgess took third in the women’s 3000m steeplechase with a time of 11:21.70.
Perhaps the biggest race of the night for Georgetown, though, came from the women’s 4-x-400m relay team comprised of Kimbers, Southerland, Schneider and senior All-American Chelsea Cox. The women, who were running together for the first time, took first place with a time of 3:43.97.
For the men, senior Hansel Akers finished strong in the men’s 400m dash, taking 12th with a time of 48.46.
“On the sprint side, I’m really pleased with Hansel Akers,” Henner said. “He’s really coming on now; he went 48.4 in the 400m, which is the fastest he’s run over 400m in a couple years. He also came back and ran a [personal record] in the 200m, I think it was 22.03. I think that shows he’s going to run a really good 400m hurdles in the next month.”
Senior All-American Billy Ledder placed fourth in the 800m with a time of 1:48.01, just a tenth of a second behind Columbia senior Harry McFann.
Freshman All-American Amos Bartelsmeyer placed fifth in the men’s 1500m run with a time of 3:46.04, followed by freshman All-American Ryan Manahan in seventh at 3:46.71, sophomore All-American Ahmed Bile in eighth at 3:47.01 and sophomore Cole Williams in ninth at 3:47.20.
“We had a great meet this weekend,” Henner said. “Billy Ledder put himself pretty high on the 800m list, we had some freshmen, Amos Bartelsmeyer and Ryan Manahan, and then Ahmed Bile, the junior transfer Cole Williams all ran very well in the 1500.”
After a strong showing at the George Mason Invitational, the Hoyas will split across the country again on April 18 and 19. Some athletes will be heading to the Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut, Calif., while others will travel to the Larry Ellis Invitational in Princeton, N.J. With less than a month until the Big East championships, and just over a month until the NCAA regionals, the Blue and Gray will be focusing on running hard to put up qualifying times.
“We’re still working on trying to get higher on that list to make sure that we make it to the NCAA first round,” Henner said.
