The William & Mary women's track & field team added two more school records to its season-long haul on Sunday at the 45th ECAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships, using those performances to keep among the title contenders and finish fifth overall with 49.5 points. James Madison won its first ECAC team title with 80 points, while Hampton was second with 60 points. Towson (56 points) and Delaware (53) rounded out the top five in the 36-team event. This is the third time that the Tribe has finished fifth or better at the ECAC Championships since 2004, joining fourth-place showings outdoors in 2008 and indoors in 2020.
Results
Discus
The day began out at the Stimson Throwing Events Area, with a sixth-place finish in the discus for
Chelsea Wallace (Chesapeake, Va.). She threw the disc 46.17m (151-5) for three team points, and her second All-East award in the discus after previously finishing second as a freshman in 2019.
400m Dash
Shifting over to the stadium, the next event up was the 400m dash. Sophomore
Mary Gregory (Reston, Va.) ran 55.59 seconds, the 10th-fastest race in school history, and finished eighth overall for another point. She is just the second athlete to be named All-East outdoors in the 400m, joining
Susanna Maisto '20 from 2019.
400m Hurdles
In the 400m hurdles, sophomore
Makenzie Joiner (Mechanicsville, Va.) just missed out on All-East honors of her own, running a lifetime-best of 1:02.77 for ninth overall. The CAA Champion in the 400m hurdles, Joiner now ranks sixth all-time among W&M athletes in the event.
200m Dash
Freshman
Emily Ervin (Overland Park, Kan.) had a double-record day all on her own, starting with a dominating performance in the 200m dash. Stuck in the outside lane, she blew through the competition and the track to take third overall in 23.92 seconds, obliterating her own freshman record set last weekend (24.30) as well as the school record of 24.11 set by
Victoria Gersch '20 back in 2019. Ervin is the first women's sprinter in program history to ever be named All-East in the 200m outdoors.
Pole Vault
In the pole vault, both of W&M's entrants had outstanding days, and earned All-East honors for the first time in their careers. Sophomore
Olesya Sitkowski (Phoenixville, Pa.) and freshman
Sophie Fernandez (Houston, Texas) both cleared the bar at a height of 3.78m (12-4.75), with Sitkowski finishing tied for sixth and Fernandez eighth on the basis of attempts. For Fernandez, it was a personal-best clearance, and improves her to ninth in school history history. In addition to being the first All-East performance for both athletes, it was also just the third time in program history (joining 2008 outdoors and 2009 indoors) that W&M has had a pair of vaulters both finish top-eight at the same championships.
4x400m Relay
Wrapping up the meet was the 4x400m relay, and another stunning performance for the Tribe sprinting corps. The team of Gregory,
Grace Bir (Falls Church, Va.),
Carly Swierbut (Newtown, Conn.), and Ervin combined to finish second overall in 3:40.07, breaking their own school record for the third time this spring. It was also the first time that W&M has ever earned All-East honors outdoors in the 4x400m relay, and matches the best-ever finish for any Tribe relay outdoors.
With the regular season now complete, William & Mary awaits word of any possible invitations to the NCAA Championships later this week. The top 48 entrants in each individual event in the East Region, as well as the top-24 teams in both the 4x100m relay and the 4x400m relay, will earn a selection to the Eastern Preliminary Rounds at Bloomington, Ind., May 25-28. The top-12 finishers in each event will then qualify onward for the NCAA Championship finals in Eugene, Ore., June 8-11.
As of Sunday at 4 PM, W&M had three entries well within range of selection to the Eastern Preliminaries. In the javelin, sophomore
Kristen Herr (Willow Street, Pa.) ranks 48th overall in the javelin, and her classmate
Keeley Suzenski (Fleetwood, Pa.) is 54th overall in the discus. The Tribe's 4x400m relay is also ranked 28th overall, and could be in line for the first-ever relay invite depending both on results of other meets this weekend as well as the entry status of other teams that may have run their times much earlier in the season.
45th ECAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships
Zable Stadium/Dan Stimson Throwing Events Area
Final Team Standings
1. James Madison 80
2. Hampton 60
3. Towson 56
4. Delaware 53
5. William & Mary 49.5
6. Army West Point 46
7. Stony Brook 39.5
8. Harvard 39
9. Lehigh 38
10. UMBC 37
11. Albany 34.5
12. Fordham 30
13. George Mason 29.5
14. Bucknell 29
T15. Richmond 27
T15. Rider 27
T15. Saint Francis (Pa.) 27
18. Long Island 19
19. Binghamton 14
20. Elon 13
21. Manhattan 11
22. Lafayette 10
T23. Boston University 9
T23. New Hampshire 9
T23. Northeastern 9
T23. Siena 9
T27. Adelphi 27
T27. Fairleigh Dickinson 7
T27. St. Joseph's 7
30. Navy 6
31. Vermont 5
T32. Canisius 4
T32. Marist 4
T32. NJIT 4
T32. St. Peter's 4
36. Colgate 2
