Six ECAC Qualifications Highlight Opening Meet for W&M Women's Track and Field

Lynnie Bresnahan Improves Triple-Jump Best by Over a Foot

12/06/09 1:42AM

NEWPORT NEWS, VA - The William and Mary women's track and field team opened the 2009-10 indoor season Saturday at the CNU Holiday Open, chalking up six ECAC qualifying performances in the day-long meet. All together, nine athletes set 10 indoor and overall personal-best marks.

Complete Results

Three of the Tribe's qualifying marks came in the 5,000m run, where senior Meghan Burns (Coopersburg, Pa.) made her indoor debut at the distance and won in 17:06.08. Classmate Kayley Byrne (Oak Hill, Va.) was right behind her in 17:10.51, knocking 18 seconds off of her previous indoor best, and Sallie Ford (Lynchburg, Va.) made it three seniors qualified to ECACs with her fourth-place 17:22.11. Ford's time improved her own lifetime best over 5,000m by more than 24 seconds.

Senior Nicole Kazuba (Chantilly, Va.) won the pole vault for the 21st time in her career, topping the bar at 12-3.5 (3.75 meters) to qualify for the ECAC Championships. Classmates Ashley Williams (Williamsburg, Va.) and Carly Morse (Sumerduck, Va.) also punched their tickets for Boston, taking second and third in the shot put. Williams set a lifetime best by one centimeter, putting the shot 44-7.5 (14.60m) to improve to seventh all-time at W&M. Morse also easily cleared the qualifying barrier with a put of 44-5.25 (14.54m).

Sophomore Lynnie Bresnahan (Orange, Va.) improved her personal-best in the triple jump by over a foot Saturday afternoon, leaping out 37-2.25 (11.33m) to finish seventh in the event, and to improve to seventh all-time at W&M. She also set a personal-best in the 55m dash, running 7.89 seconds in the preliminary heats.

In the 800m, senior Kelly McElroy (Wyomissing, Pa.) won the race and lowered her indoor-best by a second, to 2:14.68, and was just a quarter-second away from qualifying to the ECAC Championships. Runner-up honors went to sophomore Heather Beichner (Cary, N.C.) in the mile (5:03.69) and to junior Emily Jeremiah (Mechanicsville, Va.), who cleared the bar at 11-3.75 (3.45m) in the pole vault. Senior Jennifer Garrott (Burke, Va.) was third in the event with a vault of 10-10 (3.30m).

In the 5,000m, sophomore Sara Lasker (Fredericksburg, Va.) finished fifth overall with a massive 23 seconds personal-best effort, crossing the line in 17:56.20. Senior Robin Vanneman (Stafford, Va.) improved her indoor-best time by three seconds in the event, finishing seventh in 18:42.52.

Sophomore Brittany Sevachko (Centreville, Va.) finished fifth in the mile run, lowering her personal-record in the event by seven seconds to 5:21.26. Junior Katie Guevel (Burlington, Kan.) had a pair of notable performances, taking fifth in the 55m hurdles with a time of 8.34 seconds, before improving her indoor-best mark in the shot put by 7.5 inches to 36-2.75 (11.04m). Sophomore Natalie Baird (Sterling, Va.) rounded out the top-five finishers for W&M, claiming fifth in the shot with a put of 42-9 (13.03m).

William and Mary is off for the next month and a half for exams and the winter holidays, but will return to action on January 22-23, at the Hampton Invitational in Hampton, Virginia.