After three months indoors, the Bradley track teams have finally broken outside for the Bill Cornell Spring Classic March 26.
Sophomore Michael Ward won the men’s 1500-meter, and freshman Sara Piller won the women’s 5000-meter title, highlighting the outdoor season opener for the Bradley men’s and women’s track and field teams.
On the men’s side, freshman David Shadid clocked the best 400-meter time at Bradley since 1982, the second-best time in school history at 48.99 seconds to take second overall.
On the women’s side, sophomore Kathryn Adelman made her outdoor debut in the 400-meter and clocked the eighth-best time in program history to finish fifth at 59.22 seconds.
According to head coach Darren Gauson, short distance events are something the team hasn’t focused on during the spring in years past.
“We’ll do more on the sprint side this year,” Gauson said. “We have a lot of good sophomores and freshmen.”
Ward earned top honors in the 1500-meters with a time of 3:48.75, and the Bradley men had four of the top five individuals in the field.
Included was senior Chase Coffey, who clocked a career-best time of 3:51.20 to finish fourth. In addition, senior Eric Delvo made his return to the track after missing the 2015 season due to an Achilles injury, taking fifth in the 1500-meter field at 3:53.28.
Piller took top honors for the women in the 5000-meters with a time of 17:56.01. Behind her was sophomore Hannah Witczak, whose second place finish at 17:59.11 improved her personal-best time by 22 seconds. Additionally, sophomore Nicole Alfano took fifth with a personal-best effort of 18:30.77.
Further highlighting the day was junior Steffen Uhrich, who secured a second-place finish in the 3000-meter steeplechase. He posted a career-best time of 9:18.68. Right behind him was sophomore Nikolas Hess in third at 9:25.05.
Redshirt junior Elizabeth Dutcher starred for the Braves with a career-best toss in the javelin. She placed second in the event with her career-best heave of 36.62 meters, ranking fourth in school history and the best from Bradley since 2010.
The Bradley men’s and women’s track and field teams return to action this weekend at the San Francisco State Distance Carnival and Stanford Invitational, as well as the Eastern Illinois Big Blue Classic.
“We’re sort of splitting the staff up,” he said.
Gauson said he plans to send the more experienced and higher point-totalling runners to the Stanford Invitaitonal and split the rest of the runners between the San Francisco State Distance Carnival in San Francisco, CA, and the Eastern Illinois Big Blue Classic in Charleston, Ill.
