The Georgetown women’s track team had a weekend highlighted by several personal bests, as the squad competed at the Villanova Invitational in Staten Island, N.Y.
Associate Head Coach Alton McKenzie noted the advantage gained by the Hoya women who competed at Villanova, where the Big East Indoor Championships will also be held.
“This meet gave us an opportunity to have some of our newcomers get acclimated to the Ocean Breeze track facility,” McKenzie said in an interview with GUHoyas.
The 60 meter dash at Villanova showcased the rising potential of senior Jody-Ann Knight and graduate student Taylor Williams, both of whom achieved new personal bests. Knight came in fifth place with her record-setting time of 7.69, and Williams came in 7th place with a time of 7.79 after breaking her record in the preliminary round with a time of 7.73.
The 200m dash also featured both Williams and Knight, who set another personal best. Knight took second place with a time of 24.27, and Williams followed less than a second behind in 24.88, earning fifth place. In her Georgetown track debut, freshman Shannon Meisberger nearly broke into the top 10 along with her teammates, finishing 11th with a time of 25.34.
McKenzie gave high praise to Knight’s achievement in both events.
“She seems to enjoy running at this facility, as yet again she ran indoor PBs at the 60 and 200m dash on the same day,” McKenzie said. “She’s worked hard consistently this entire year and her amazing range across all sprints makes that fact evident.”
Meisberger found even more success in the 400m race with her second-place finish and time of 57.27.
This performance stood out to McKenzie not only because Meisberger had set of a new personal record, but also because she was only recently introduced to indoor track.
“We had some outstanding performances, highlighted by freshman [Meisberger] running a PR in the 400m and second-best overall on the day, having never run indoor prior to this season,” McKenzie said.
The Hoyas secured additional top-10 placements in the 60m hurdles. Freshman Malika Houston earned fifth place with a time of 8.83, and freshman Vickie Milledge earned ninth place with a time of 9.08.
Next week, the team will focus on qualifying individuals for the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, as they will split up to compete at the B.U. Valentine Invitation in Boston and the Iowa State Classic in Ames, Iowa.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated that the women’s track team competed at the Scarlet and White Invitational in Boston. Only the men’s team competed in Boston. The headline of this article also misstated that the team competed in Philadelphia when they actually competed in Staten Island, N.Y.
