Lyons set relay record, Tsoni takes 3rd in long jump at New England D3 Championships

From left to right, Aria Mallare, Elle Rimando, Sachi Robinson and Ioanna Tsoni broke Mount Holyoke's 4x200 relay record on Feb. 28, 2025 at the New England Division III Indoor Championships in Boston.

BOSTON -- A 22-year old team record broken and a third-place finish in the long jump for sophomore Ioanna Tsoni highlighted an exciting first day of action for Mount Holyoke at the New England Division III Indoor Track & Field Championships Friday at The Track at New Balance.

Tsoni (Athens, Greece) scored Mount Holyoke's only team points on a day full of notable performances for the Lyons. Tsoni earned All-New England honors by placing third among 24 competitors with a top jump of 5.40 meters (17'8.75"), which edged Tufts' Jordan Andrew by a centimeter for third place.

The six points Tsoni scored put Mount Holyoke in a four-way tie for 12th place among 21 scoring teams, with nine of 21 events completed.

An all-classes 4x200 relay team comprising Tsoni, first-year Sachi Robinson (Staten Island, N.Y.), junior Elle Rimando (Mililani, Hawaii) and senior Aria Mallare (Chicago, Ill.) finished in 1:46.55, going 0.37 seconds under the former team record of 1:46.92 set in 2003 by Chiara Davis-Fuller, Akua Soadwa, Langhan Dee, and Molly Carlisle. The Lyons quartet finished ninth among 33 competing teams in the event, one place out of the team scoring.

It is the first time for Mallare and Robinson in the team record books, and the third for Rimando and the fifth for Tsoni.

Tsoni also took fourth place out of 27 competitors in the preliminary heats of the 60 hurdles with a time of 9.26 seconds, making her the fourth and final competitor to automatically qualify for the event finals on Saturday.

The highlights didn't end there for Mount Holyoke:

Sophomore Dalia Luckhardt (Cerritos, Calif.) ran a new lifetime best time in the 600 meters of 1:41.88, good for 14th place out of 22 competitors in the event. Luckhardt moved up from fifth place to second on Mount Holyoke's all-time performance list in the event, passing Elizabeth Keegan (1996), Valerie Shepard (2004), and Malai Tananone (2004) along the way. Lyons track legend Dee owns the team record of 1:36.97.
Senior Greta Trapp (La Crosse, Wis.) took 11th place among 30 runners in the 1,000 meters with a time of 3:06.15.
Senior Tessa Lancaster (Mansfield, Mass.) placed 19th out of 26 runners in the 5,000 meters in 18:40.91.

The meet concludes Saturday.