The Lafayette Track and Field team failed to top Lehigh in their annual dual meet in Bethlehem, PA last Saturday.
Men:
Lafayette boasted a number of personal bests in a multitude of events despite losing by a significant margin of 111.5-69.5.
Personal records were among the mix for the sprinters despite the sizeable defeat. Both Mike Smitelli ‘16 in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.16 seconds and David Robinson ‘14 in the 200-meter dash finishing in 22.66 seconds held PRs.
In the field events, Juannell Riley ‘15 had a personal best in the weight throw with a distance of 16.40 meters, topping his personal record by over two feet, and Colton Mitchell ‘16 in the pole vault jumping 4.57 meters, eclipsing 15 feet for the first time of his career. Mac Maguire ‘14 also had a personal record in the throw, while Brendan Harney ‘15 and Pat Corcoran ‘17 had personal bests in the pole vault and shot put respectively.
“I can’t complain with what they’re doing,” head coach Michele Curcio said.
Coach Curcio was particularly impressed by Thomas Day ‘16 for his outstanding performance in the 1000-meter and one-mile races.
“Tom Day had a hell of a meet running 4:21 in the mile and 2:37 in the 1000 on a double,” Curcio said. “Tom won the mile, and I don’t think anyone would have counted him in winning the mile. They have some outstanding male distance runners [at Lehigh].”
At the end of the day, however, Lafayette failed to come out on top.
“Track is a quirky sport because you can run a massive PR and still not win a meet. It’s not that our team had bad performances—our team had outstanding performances. Lehigh just had better performances.”
Women:
The women’s team, in spite of losing 102-79, was highlighted by a consistent Rachel Pena ‘14 and Haley Langton ‘15, who both set new facility records at Rauch Fieldhouse.
Pena’s FR was able to grab the women’s squad a win with a shot put distance of 13.39 meters. Langton, on the other hand, finished just short of first place as she was outstepped by Lehigh’s Danielle Albergo by .63 seconds.
“Haley ran the number four best time in our school’s history,” Curcio said. “If she could have had five or ten more meters, maybe she would have caught [Albergo].”
Devin Smith ‘17 came out victorious in two events, crossing the finish line first in both the 200-meter and 400-meter events.
“There’s a lot of training things that you’re going towards. We don’t back our training off so much the week before Lehigh because if we did that it would cost us three weeks or four weeks down the road when we’re at the Patriot League meet.”
So after a loss to a rival school, Lafayette has kept their spirits high moving forward.
Highlighting the outstanding performances and insisting the team is where it wants to be at this point in the year, Curcio is optimistic for the upcoming weeks in preparation for the Patriot League Championships in late February.
“You always circle this meet, but it’s not like you peak at this meet. In our sport… you’re trying to peak for your championships,” Curcio said.