University of Richmond Athletics
Track & Field Opens Outdoor Season At Rams Invite
03/15/2012 | Women's Track & Field
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND, Va. - The Richmond track & field squads open their outdoor seasons on Saturday when they make the cross-town trip to VCU for the Rams Invitational to be held at Sports Backer Stadium.
INSIDE THE
RAMS INVITATIONAL
Saturday's season-opening meet will get underway at 11 a.m. with the
hammer throw, pole vault and the women's 5,000 Meters. Sports Backer Stadium
features an eight-lane 400-meter Martin surface track with throwing facilities
also being located within the main stadium. While no live results will be
provided during the meet itself, full results will be made available following
the meet on RichmondSpiders.com
LAST TIME
OUT
The Spiders are set to open the outdoor
season after most recently coming off a record-setting weekend at February's Atlantic 10 Championships in
Kingston, R.I. In the team standings, the women finished sixth with 62.5
points, while the men took ninth with 17 points. Rhode Island captured the
men's title with Charlotte taking the title on the women's side.
In what has been one of the Spiders' strongest events this season, freshman Taylor Clevinger (Mechanicsville, Va./Saint Catherine's School) would combine with sophomore Alli Mannon (Litiz, Pa./Warwick), junior Stephanie Paradis (Leesburg, Va./Stone Bridge) and senior Nicol Traynor (Basking Ridge, N.J./Ridge) to take the DMR title with a new conference meet and facility record of 11:39.03. The foursome's finish topped Dayton's 2011 record of 11:41.51 by more than two seconds.
Continuing the Spiders' record-setting ways on Saturday was sophomore Meghan Hart (State College, Pa./State College), who put together a new school-record score of 3,196 points to finish fourth in the pentathlon. The versatile sophomore broke the previous record of 3,029 set in 2000 by Cathleen Campbell, recording a leap of 1.55 meters (5'1") in the high jump and utilizing a fourth-place showing in the 800 Meters portion of the event to move up to the overall fourth spot.
Traynor (Basking Ridge, N.J./Ridge) clocked a 9:32.20 to cruise to victory in the 3,000 Meters, setting new A-10 meet and school records in the process. Her finish, which reset her own program mark established earlier in the indoor season, was more than 10 seconds faster than the previous conference record of 9:42.87 set by Dayton's Maureen Bolgren.
After picking up a gold in the DMR the day before, Clevinger would add another in the 4x800 Meter Relay on Saturday. The rookie standout joined Paradis (Leesburg, Va./Stone Bridge), Mannon and redshirt freshman Alyson McGonigle (Chester Springs, Pa./Villa Maria Academy) to turn in a top finish in the 4x800 Meter Relay with a time of 9:10.33.
Clevinger would come up just short of a third gold with a strong runner-up showing of 2:54.35 in the 1,000 Meters. Fellow Richmonder Amanda Lineberry (Mechanicsville, Va./Lee Davis) crossed the line in fifth with a time of 2:59.88.
MEET
RESULTS
A meet recap and complete results will be made available on RichmondSpiders.com following Saturday's
meet. More immediate results can be found via Coach Steve Taylor's Twitter, while in-depth
coverage will be made available on his blog.
Players Mentioned
