The Colorado College women’s track team hosted the Colorado College Invitational this past weekend. Despite another meet against tough Division II competitors and some open runners, the Tigers garnered a number of personal and season best times. “The team gets fired up for the home meet,” said Track and Field Head Coach Ted Castaneda. “We responded really well to being at home.”
The construction of the new El Pomar Sports Center afforded the team a chance to compete at CC. “It’s exciting having a home meet because we literally didn’t have a track for two years,” said Castaneda. This is only the second year the track team has been able to compete at home and invite other teams to CC for competition.
The highlights of the long distance competition came from sophomores Leah Wessler and Katie Sandfort. Wessler nearly set the school record for the 1500 meter event by turning in a time of 5 minutes, 25.51 seconds, almost a whole twelve seconds better than her previous personal best. She missed the record by less than half a second. “It got really windy right before the event so that ruined her chances a little bit, unfortunately,” said track and field assistant coach Alex Nichols. The strong showing garnered Wessler a second place finish in the event. “The altitude is no fun, of course. I hope to break 18 minutes in the 5k, and later I hope to win the SCAC 5k race in Texas,” said Wessler.
Sandfort topped her former personal best in the 3000-meter event by thirteen seconds when she ran a time of 11 minutes, 28.22 seconds. The time gave her the victory in the event. “Katie had virtually no competition and she realized that about 300 or 400 meters into the race so hats off to her for still going for that personal best,” said Castaneda.
In addition to a number of strong individual performances, the 4×400 team set their personal best time at 4 minutes, 17.16 seconds. Wessler had high praise for her teammates’ strong performances. “The team is running so well. I’m incredibly proud of everyone with setting so many personal records,“ said Wessler. Castaneda echoed Wessler’s remarks, “as coaches, it was really satisfying to see everyone go for it in the home meet.” The Tigers will continue to take on tough upper-division competition in the CU Invitation in Boulder this coming weekend.