SOUTH HADLEY, MASS. – The Mount Holyoke College track and field team had an outstanding performance, powered by four top-three finishes as it hosted the Spring Fling Invitational on Saturday. Overall, the Lyons finished fifth out of a twelve-team field. Winning the meet was Eastern Connecticut State, who had a total of 148 points.
Mount Holyoke had a strong start to the meet as sophomore Emma Raney (Palo Alto, Calif./Pa;o Alto) powered her way to a first place finish in the 3,000 meter steeplechase with a time of 12:07.14, which was over ten seconds faster than the next finisher. The Lyons kept up the momentum as the 4x100m relay team comprised of first years Tamara Mukulu (Nairobi, Kenya/Brookhouse International), Isabelle Wohlin (Wellesley, Mass./Wellesley HS), and Ireland Clare Kennedy (Oakland, Calif./Holy Names), and sophomore Charleen Theroux (Coventry, R.I./Coventry), finished second overall in a time of 51.78.
Action transitioned to the 1500m run, where junior Emsie Cronin (Ledyard, Conn./Ledyard) and first year Simone Jacob (San Francisco, Calif./San Francisco University HS) placed sixth and seventh out of a field of 22 registering times of 5:19.80 and 5:22.87, respectively. In the 100m dash, the Lyons did well as Wohlin finished fifth overall out of 35 competitors with a 12.98 time. Mukulu was close behind in seventh with a time of 13.10, just .03 seconds behind the sixth place finisher.
Jacob later went on to place fifth in the 800m run, crossing the line in 2:33.08, while Raney wasn't far behind in eight, recording a time of 2:38.17 in a field of 26. Theroux turned in another top-five performance, recording a 26.31 200m dash, good for fourth place out of 39 competitors.
In the 5,000m run, sophomores Brigit Wolf (New Providence, N.J./Union County Magnet), and Michelle Serrano (Los Angeles, Calif./West Adams Preparatory) did a great job pacing each other with times of 20.27.05 and 20.28.83, finishing fourth and fifth, respectively. In the final track event of the day, Mount Holyoke finished fourth out of 11 teams in the 4x400m dash with a time of 4:26.08.
On the field, Theroux finished her day off with a second place finish in the long jump, leaping 5.03m, while Clare Kennedy threw a distance of 29.61m in the javelin throw, placing fifth overall. Rounding out the Lyons performance was junior Julia Hecking (Greenville, Pa./Greenville) with the second, first place finish of the day with a distance of 39.90m in the hammer throw.
Mount Holyoke will have select athletes traveling to Worcester on Wednesday and Thursday for the Holy Cross Heptathlon, while the entire team will travel to the Springfield College Invitational next Saturday.
