Elmhurst University’s Track and Field team is Breaking PR’s Non Stop
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Elmhurst University’s Track and Field team has been building itself up, now No. 21 in NCAA for D3 schools.
While the distance teams were still caught up in cross country, the sprints and field events took to the track in early December with their first meet of the season, the Olivet Nazarene University Holiday Invite on Dec. 5.
Many of their athletes started out strong at the ONU Holiday Invite.
Jeremy Inniss scored gold for his long jump of 6.63 meters, Venezia Munoz won a first place finish in the 800 m, and the 4×400 m relay team, including Huda Hussaini, Karmyn Flesch, Naomi Jones, and Ava David, also scored first.
A month of training followed until the next meet on Jan. 14, when the team took a small group to Massachusetts to race at the TRACK at New Balance. The roster included sprinters David and Hussaini, hurdler Nakala Nadeau, mid-distance runner Braxston Redmond, and jumper Ricardo Martinez.
The group also raced at the Suffolk Ice Breaker on the same day and at the UMass Flagship Indoor Invitational the following day.
Returning from Boston, the group met back up with the rest of the team for the I-55 Invite hosted by Illinois Wesleyan on Jan. 21.
Senior Jumper Leilani Mathews praised her team for how their seasons have progressed.
“My teammates have really been putting in a lot of work throughout the season so far and because of how hard we’ve been working we had multiple PR’s in both track events and field events,” said Mathews.
Redmond won third place in a debut 200 m dash. David continued a winning streak, placing first in the 60 m and 200 m dash as well as earning a top-ten national rank in both events.
Junior Lauren Marshall got a lifetime personal record (PR) in the long jump, jumping 5.13 m and sophomore Esther Brown ran a PR time of 5:25.2 minutes.
A week later the team traveled to Chicago for the Aurora Grand Prix.
David broke a school record and is second in the country in the 400 m dash with a new time of 56.26 seconds. Rafuse also broke a school record, running 5:02.40 in the mile.
Brown also broke her PR once again in the mile with a time of 5:17.64. Sophomore Molly Glover ran her best 3K by almost a minute with a new time of 11:42.95.
Redmond also improved his school record with a time of 49.51 seconds in the 400 m dash. Freshman Patrick Campbell jumped a PR of 12.68 m in the triple jump.
On Feb. 3, some of the women’s team traveled to Wisconsin for the Tadd Metzger Multi, while the rest of the team went back to Chicago for the Windy City Rumble on Feb. 4.
Many of the team placed top ten in their events and secured a third place finish for the men’s team and the women’s team tied for second place with Hope College in Michigan.
The team continued their season splitting the team for the Grand Valley State University Big Meet on February 10, and the Titan Open on Feb. 11.
The men’s and women’s team will continue their season on Friday, Feb.17, at the Slick Invite in Naperville.