BOSTON, Mass. -- Following the performances at Harvard's Crimson Elite Friday, the Yale women's track and field team finished off the weekend trip in Boston at BU's Bruce Lehane Scarlet & White Invitational Saturday. This was the first of two opportunities this season for the Bulldogs to utilize Boston University's world-class facility to post impressive marks in order to seed them highly at the Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Track and Field Championships in three weeks. Among the highlights on a day that saw multiple additions to Yale's all-time lists, the Bulldogs' 4x400m relay team broke the school record.
To say the Bulldogs took advantage of the competition is a massive understatement. Starting off the afternoon right was senior Libby McMahon, who came off yesterday's double in the 60m to run a personal best time in the 400m dash of 55.84s. This time was fast enough to surge past Georgetown's Maya Drayton in the last straightaway to win her heat and place seventh overall. McMahon's time also wrote her name in the Yale all-time list as the third-fastest time in the 400m.
Impressed by McMahon's performance, the Bulldogs performed very competitively in the women's 500m dash, where senior Addison Coy finished second overall. She improved her best time in the event, crossing the line with a time of 1:14.22. This mark maintains her impressive second place all-time at Yale performance in the 500m. Also running with great talent was Californian Maya Sharp, who placed fifth overall and edged herself comfortably ahead of Harvard's top competitor Ellaney Matarese. Sharp's time of 1:15.17 surpasses her previous personal best in the event by more than 1.5 seconds, and places her fourth all-time at Yale.
The young Bulldogs also showed quite the maturity in their performances today. In the field events sophomore Maria Leskovec has continued to progress each meet, throwing a personal best in the weight throw of 49'1.50" for eighth overall Saturday. First year Arielle Moore improved her best time in the 500m, running 1:18.70. Sophomore Bharathi Subbiah and first year Dominique Romain placed top 10 in the meet in the long jump, with Subbiah jumping a season's best 17'6" and Romain jumping 17'3.5".
Moving off the track and into the field and special events, junior Karen Kirunda placed sixth overall in the triple jump with a season's best leap of 36'3". Captain Emma Vasen continued to show her consistency, finishing her weekend with an impressive top-five finish in the weight throw with a toss of 53'9.25".
As the women bumped up the distance, they maintained very admirable performances. In the women's 800m, junior Samantha Friborg secured a third-place finish, running a personal best time of 2:07.77 that improves her third place all-time at Yale performance. In the women's 1000m, the Bulldogs secured second- and fourth-place finishes, with sophomore Kyra Pretre running 2:51.56 and senior Jocelyn Chau clocking a 2:57.02. In the mile, cross country All-American Kayley DeLay made her 2022 debut by running down in distance with the mile. DeLay continues to write her name in the Yale record books, running a second all-time mark in the mile, where she crossed the line in sixth place with a time of 4:40.77.
At a meet with so many mouth-dropping performances, it is difficult to determine the highlight. But when a school record is broken, it is easy to turn your attention to such an accomplishment. The team of McMahon, Sophie Isom, Olympian Aliya Boshnak and Coy all came back from their fast 400m earlier in the day to make history collectively, as they ran the fastest 4x400m relay in Yale history. They finished third overall with a time of 3:41.75. This performance nudged just ahead of the previous all-time mark by one second -- Boshnak and Coy ran in that relay back in 2019 with Lilian Enes '20 and Emma Osborne '21.
With so many all-time performances already, it is exciting to see how many more can be reached with another week of consistent training. The Bulldogs return to Boston University for the David Hemery Valentine Invitational this upcoming Friday, Feb. 11.
