The track and field team traveled to Philadelphia last weekend for the Widener Indoor Classic, its second-to-last regular meet of the indoor season.
As the Leopards build up to the Patriot League indoor championships on March 1-2, the Widener Classic offered opportunities to break records before the pre-championship taper.
Sophomore sprinter Ida Moczerniuk won the 60-meter dash with a final time of 7.61. Moczerniuk holds the school record in the 60, which she has already broken twice this indoor season.
The meet was held at the recently opened Ott Center for Track and Field at the University of Pennsylvania. Moczerniuk noted that racing on the new track “intimidated” her and that she did not think the 60 was one of her “best executed” races.
She added that she has been working on displacing in the first five steps of the race.
“When I’ve faced opponents that are significantly better than me, that’s where I see the most disparity between us,” Moczerniuk said. “Once we reach top speed, we’re similar, but they cover so much more ground in the first couple steps of the race that there’s just no chance that I’m gonna catch up to them at 60 meters.”
Moczerniuk followed up her victory in the 60 with a second-place finish in the 200 meters.
Senior Nava Chevan placed second out of 40 runners in the 400 meters, finishing in 56.36. Chevan sits at No. 3 on the all-time top 10 list for Lafayette College, under two seconds off of the school record.
Chevan noted that she has mainly been focused on the 800 meters, and Saturday was the first time she raced the 400 this season.
“Although maybe I didn’t reach the time goal that I wanted, it’s so fun to get to do time trialing racing, where you’re really just going out there and trying to run as fast as you can,” Chevan said.
She added that the Patriot League championships will be much more of a “tactical” race for points and scoring.
Senior pole vaulter Julia Greeley backed up her school record-tying performance last week at the Fast Track Invite with a win over the field of 30 vaulters.
On the men’s side, juniors Titan Casey and Quinn Worrell went 1-2 in the 800 meters with times of 1:53.10 and 1:53.23, respectively. Both earned spots on the indoor all-time top-10 list for their performances.
Looking forward to the championship, both Chevan and Moczerniuk noted that they have been watching the Patriot League list on the Track and Field Results Reporting System, which compiles race times from the season and ranks runners based on their times.
Moczerniuk is currently ranked first in the Patriot League in both the 60 and the 200, and Chevan sits in second in the 800.
Chevan will be competing solely in the 800 at the league meet. She broke the indoor school record for the 800 twice in January but noted that she is more focused on her competition.
“My focus has really been on, like, ‘What are other athletes in the Patriot League doing?’” Chevan said. “And using that as a metric to measure where I want to be and create my goals.”
The track and field team will travel to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, on Friday for its final indoor meet before the Patriot League championships next weekend.
“We’re ready to show the Patriot League that we’re here and we deserve to be here,” Moczerniuk said.
