By Reed Dickerson
This past weekend men’s and women’s track and field competed in the All-Ohio Championships at Ohio Wesleyan University. Overall, the Lords came in 20th out of 20 teams and the Ladies in 18th out of 19.
Carlo Gagliardo ’13 said the teams’ mentality was relaxed going into the meet. “We didn’t bring a very big team this week. We had a couple of guys who were pretty banged up, so we decided to give them some time off,” he said. “But team morale was pretty high. We were just going to go in with what we had and give it a shot.”
Gagliardo the only scorer for the Lords. In the 200-meter dash he finished fourth with a time of 22.26 seconds ﾗ just one hundredth of a second off his own record. “I wasn’t disappointed [with my times],” he said. “It was 40 degrees out ﾗ cold, windy ﾗ so any times you can throw down that are close to the times you run are decent.”
Other top 10 performers for the men were Brett Williams ’13, who placed 10th in the high jump with a final height of 1.83 meters, and Joey Cordle ’14, who placed 10th in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 15.80 seconds. The distance runners also made some important strides, with two first-year runners setting new personal bests. Sam Lagasse ’16 finished 12th in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 15:36.43, beating his personal record of the previous season by more than 30 seconds. Additionally, Peter Granville ’16 came in 15th in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, setting a new personal record with a time of 10:10.19.
On the Ladies’ side, Alexia Derkasch ’13 set a new school record in the 400-meter dash with a time of 58.91 seconds and placed fourth out of a field of 23 runners. Her time broke the previous record of 59.04, set by Anna Batchelder in 1983, which Derkasch nearly broke back in late March. Other top qualifiers for the Ladies included Jenna Willett ’14, who placed third out of 28 runners in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 17:47.
The Ladies barely missed out on additional points in the 4×400 meter relay, run by Leah Jacques ’13, Derkasch, Lauren Bittrich ’16 and Samantha White ’16. The relay team came in ninth place out of 15 teams with a time of 4:14.39. Overall, the Ladies scored 11 total points.
“It’s a very competitive meet, you have to qualify to get in,” Gagliardo said. “It’s basically the best Division III runners in Ohio.”
The teams will compete here in Gambier at the Kenyon College Invitational this weekend.
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