The Lafayette track and field team continued their season with an impressive outing at the Patriot League Championships last weekend. The men’s team finished in seventh place with 28 points while the women finished in eighth place with 18 points. The top scorer for the men was sophomore Sam Fishbein, who earned six points for placing third in the weight throw. Fishbein’s throw went 18.50 meters and was good enough for the third best toss in school history.
“It was more difficult than I expected to get into the finals,” Fishbein said. “I went into the finals placed ninth and realized I needed to get back into it. But I was confident given the amount of work I’ve put in throughout the season. My first throw was really strong and I ended up in third place.”
On the women’s side, the top scorer was the distance medley team, consisting of freshman Cassandra Wilk, senior Amy Hewlett, junior Crosby Spiess, and senior Caroline Harmon. The team finished fourth in their event and garnered five points and a time of 12:07.96, the fifth fastest time in the event in school history.
Other key contributors to the men’s side were sophomore Brian Kaufmann (seventh in long jump and eighth in triple jump), freshman Tim Payne (seventh in 60-meter hurdles), junior Tyler Hubeny (fifth in the heptathlon) and freshman Oscar Jopp (eighth in the heptathlon). The men’s 4×400 relay also put together a strong performance, coming in sixth and earning the Leopards three points in the meet.
When looking at the track and field team this year compared to last, the group is looking a lot stronger.
“The team did much better at the meet. We scored 28 points at this meet and had 23 last year,” said Fishbein. “Many more people scored this year and the entire team contributed whereas last year the bulk of our scoring came from only a few members.”
The women’s team also contributed across the board. Freshmen Autumn Sands finished sixth in the 3000-meter run and freshman Jillian Warabak finished sixth in the 60-meter hurdles. Sands’ 3000-meter time of 10:04:96 was a personal best and placed her fourth on Lafayette’s all-time leaderboard for the event. The 4×800 relay team also contributed three points with a strong performance. The runners, Hewlett, freshman Hannah McGlynn, Spiess, and Harmon finished sixth with a time of 9:09.59, third fastest in school history for the event.
The future looks promising for the Leopards, with young players contributing on both the men’s and women’s teams amidst increased scoring on both sides compared with last years’ team.
“It’s looking great,” added Fishbein. “Only one senior scored at our last meet so we’re bringing pretty much everyone back and our future looks really promising. A few freshmen put up points at our last meet.”
