Bradley track and field made two stops in Iowa last weekend, traveling to the state’s capital of Des Moines for the Drake Relays before driving a half-hour south to Indianola for the Kip Janvrin Invitational.
Despite no first-place finishes, the team found itself in a fantastic position, given the talent from multiple big schools at these events.
On the men’s side of the Drake Relays, the biggest story of the meet was freshman Sawyer LeBlanc, who put in a personal best time of 3:44.94 in the 1500m, securing second place. Not only did he get a podium finish, but he also set the seventh-fastest outdoor time in Bradley history in the event, one of only three male runners to set a top-10 school time this weekend.
Finishing just over a second behind LeBlanc was sophomore Travis Gaffney, who placed fourth in the 1500m. Graduate student Michael Rebello had a similar performance to LeBlanc, placing third in the 10000m and setting the 10th-fastest time in school history with a 29:59.39, with senior Caden Simone and junior Oliver Burns finishing in eighth and 10th place, respectively.
To cap things off for the men’s runners, graduate David Locke ran the 800m race in 1:50.10, getting seventh place and finishing just under a second behind first.
The women’s side also made an impression on Drake’s campus, including the 4×400 relay team of sophomores Carolina Martinez and Julia de Palma, junior Eilen Brenne and freshman Ayva Rush, finding their way to a third-place finish. Martinez also placed fifth in the individual 400m; Brenne took 10th in the unseeded 800m; and de Palma, despite finishing 12th in the 400m hurdles at 1:00.73, broke her own school record for the second consecutive week.
That wasn’t Bradley’s only relay team that saw success at the event, as the 1600m sprint medley relay (SMR) team of Brenne, sophomore Olivia Redpath, senior Hope Rajlich and freshman Noelle Steines took eighth place with a time of 3:57.36, which broke the program’s best time set five years prior at the same meet. Steines also put in a fifth-place 1500m time of 4:26.43, followed closely by sophomore Eimear McCarroll’s sixth-place time of 4:28.98.
Junior Rhune Vanroose’s 3000m steeplechase run was enough for sixth place, and to wrap things up in Des Moines, junior Sonja Inzinger took home ninth place in the 5000m with a time of 18:25.49.
Meanwhile, over at the Kip Janvrin Open, freshman Nathan Miller placed 13th in the 400m hurdles, but it was the third top-10 all-time Bradley race that weekend. Sophomore Isaac Lind and freshman Christian Harris finished second in their respective events, the 800m and 1500m, while freshman Jacob Trangmar finished 2.11 seconds behind Harris to finish eighth.
Bradley’s next endeavor will be an hour and a half away from campus, taking on the challenge of the Gary Weinke Memorial hosted by the University of Illinois. The Braves will then return the next weekend for the Illini Tune-Up, their final meet before the MVC Outdoor Championships.
