While the outdoor season may be nearly a month old, it wasn’t too late for a few firsts for Lions athletes. For veteran 800 metre runner Stephen Evans, this weekend marked the first time he tried his hand at the 1500 metres.
Since his debut with the Lions more than 12 years ago, Evans has run every distance between 60 and 1000 metres; however, Friday marked the debut in the metric mile for the 26-year-old. Toeing the line at the Tom Jones Memorial Invitational at the University of Florida, Evans completed three and three quarter laps in an impressive 3 minutes and 45.04 seconds. The time was good enough for eighth in the race and moved Evans to 16th on the Club’s all-time list.
In a rare outdoor mile opportunity, Kevin Robertson made the most of it at the Friar Invitational in Rhode Island. The Syracuse junior placed fourth in a personal best time of 4 minutes and 2.08 seconds. Robertson had set his previous best of 4:06.28 in February.
On the west coast, Keira Christie-Galloway continued her strong season at the Mt Sac Relays. The Grand Canyon University grad student placed fourth in the 100 metre hurdles with a time of 13.36 seconds on Friday. Keira currently ranks 26th on the NCAA Division I Outdoor performance list.
Joining Christie-Galloway at Mt Sac was fellow sprint hurdler David Adeleye who made his outdoor debut with a 14.30 second effort to finish 11th. Adeleye followed up on Friday’s effort with a 14.47 clocking the following day at the Bryan Clay Invitational at Azusa Pacific University where he placed seventh.
At his final home meet, Southeastern Louisiana graduate student Tommy Nedow took home top honours in the discus at the Strawberry Relays. Nedow’s top throw of 51.81 metres bested the rest of the field by more than six metres.
Rounding out the Lions in action on the track were Joe Fast and Emily Brennan. Fast made his outdoor debut after pulling out of the 1000 metre final at the Ivy League indoor championship. The Princeton junior placed 28th in the 1500 metres at the Larry Ellis Invitational in 4:03.27.
Brennan, who missed most of the indoor season due to injury, helped her Denison University teammates to a gold medal in the 4×400 metres at the Division III All-Ohio Championship.
Updated Club rankings can be found at https://milesrowat.shinyapps.io/ottl_rankings/