Outdoor season opens with broken record, personal bests

The CSB track and field team took their season outdoors this past weekend, competing against more than 20 other teams at the Hamline invite on April 2.

Five athletes placed in the top five of their events, with a pair of sophomores producing top performances. Distance runner Fiona Smith broke her own school record in the 5k with the second-fastest time in DIII this season, while sprinter Kate Gallagher ran the 100 meter in the eighth-fastest time in CSB history.

“There were quite a few performances that were like, ‘that’s a great way to start [the season],’” head coach Robin Balder-Lanoue said.

This was the first competition of the outdoor season for the Bennies after their first meet scheduled for March 26 at SJU was canceled due to weather. The conditions this weekend weren’t ideal, either, with a strong headwind on the backstretch and temperatures hovering around 40 degrees for most of the afternoon.

The meet lasted for nearly eight hours, beginning in the morning with Smith’s 5k performance. She finished with a time of 16:40.59, winning the race by more than a minute.

“The wind picked up later, so I was lucky it was the first race of the meet,” Smith said. “There were a lot of teams there, so there were a lot of spectators, which was nice, [with] our team and the Johnnies all there cheering.”

Smith’s previous best was 16:45.74, which she set in a fifth-place finish at last year’s NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships.

Later in the day, Gallagher raced the 100 in 12.6 seconds, good enough to place her fourth in the event. Her time was two-tenths of a second faster than her previous personal best.

“I feel like it was very unexpected, but it kind of was a culmination of so many perfect things working out,” Gallagher said. “It makes me excited for the rest of the season, just knowing that I started off so well and my teammates are doing so well.”

This was Gallagher’s first 100 of the year, since the 60-meter dash replaces it indoors. Along with the 100, the shift to outdoor competition provides athletes with several other events to compete in, including the 4×100 relay, 1500, 3000 steeplechase, 10k, hammer throw, discus and javelin.

The start to outdoor also means the team returns to more intense practices after peaking for the MIAC Indoor Championships and nationals.

“I like it because we get to spend more time at practice, spend more time working on technique,” thrower Maggie Beckmann said. “I like having longer practices to be with my teammates more.”

Beckmann finished sixth in the discus with a throw of 35.49 meters. Outside of Smith and Gallagher, the three other Bennies who placed in the top five of their events were sophomore distance runner Elise Yeager, first-year multi athlete Justus Floren and sophomore thrower Haley Joos.

Yeager took second in the steeplechase in 12:26.53, a 13-second personal best. Floren was fifth in the high jump with a jump of 1.50 meters, along with a sixth-place finish in long jump with a leap of 5.12 meters. Joos threw 11.39 meters in shot put, good for fifth place.

Seven other Bennies placed at the meet. Sophomore Tiana Johnson (12.92 seconds) and senior Dacoda Speidel (12.96 seconds) took seventh and eighth, respectively, in the 100. Both athletes ran their personal best.

Sophomore Ellie Selisker took seventh in high jump (1.45 meters), and senior Stephanie Pickthorn (31.31 meters) and sophomore Erin Martin (29.32 meters) were seventh and eighth, respectively, in javelin. Martin’s mark was a personal best.

Laura Mitch was seventh in the 400 (62.74 seconds), and senior Tracy Renier ran her personal best in the 5k with a time of 18:32.68.

With a multitude of Bennies recording their top results ever in an event, Balder-Lanoue hopes the successes keep coming.

“We’re always striving to be better,” Balder-Lanoue said. “I think really the biggest thing is everybody getting better, and I want to see a lot of people with personal bests.”