After Big Meet, the track and field team has been busy in and out of the competitive athletic arena. With 33 members of the team recently honored with the MPSF All-Academic Award, the Cardinal has been busy achieving excellence on and off the track. Stanford led the conference with 33 nominees. Senior Kate Niehaus led the MPSF with a GPA of 4.062 while majoring in bioengineering.
In addition to these academic endeavors and successes, the Stanford track and field team has also been busy attending various smaller meets, preparing for Pac-10s and the NCAA Championships.
Leading the way for Stanford at the Mount SAC Relays was the men’s distance program, with three runners breaking the 14-minute barrier in the 5k. Junior Elliott Heath, who ran one of the fastest times in the NCAA thus far this year, set the pace with a time of 13:29.75, which was a personal best time. Following him was sophomore Chris Derrick, who finished with a time of 13:31.67, slightly off his own personal record of 13:29.98 – a time he ran as a freshman to set the American Junior Record. The final Cardinal in the event was junior JT Sullivan, who finished with a personal best of 13:54.10.
Former Stanford pole vaulter and current pole vaulting coach Toby Stevenson was also present at the meet and inducted into the Mt. SAC Relays Hall of Fame. Stevenson, who won a silver medal at the 2004 Olympics, competed at the Mt. SAC relays in 2004, 2005 and 2006 – winning the event all three years.
Competing in the event for Stanford this year was sophomore standout Katerina Stefanidi, who took third in the event with a mark of 12-11.5.
The throwers also had an invitational meet his past weekend at UC-Davis and fared quite well. On the women’s side, senior Jaynie Goodbody took home the meet title in the hammer throw with a toss of 182-11. Another female thrower who placed for Stanford was sophomore Molly Kinsella, who placed third in the discus with a mark of 142-0, which was a season best.
On the men’s side, redshirt junior Carter Wells had an excellent meet, placing third in the hammer throw with a toss of 193-6 and placing second in the discus with a mark of 156-0.
Coming up next for the Cardinal is the Brutus Hamilton Invitational, which will take place this Friday and Saturday at Cal. The Invitational is a highly competitive meet featuring athletes from all over the country, and the Cardinal will look for some top performances and NCAA qualifying standards.
Sophomore Dylan Ferris, currently one of the top 800-meter runners in the country, will look to improve his time and prepare for the next level of competition. Ferris will need to run even faster to succeed in Pac-10s as well as the NCAA Championships, and he commented on how he could do so.
“To run faster I need to work on the distance from 200 to 600 meters and make sure the pace continues to be fast,” Ferris said. “That is the hard part of racing, to keep the pace moving when people tend to get tired.”
The Brutus Hamilton meet will play a big role in setting the tone for the higher-stakes meets awaiting the Cardinal, such as Pac-10s and NCAAs.