Rocky Rococo Invitational tough for track

Tyler Gasper

The Lawrence University indoor track team faced some tough competition at the Rocky Rococo Invitational at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater last weekend, winning only one event. After all was said and done, the men’s team stood in ninth place out of 15 teams, while the women’s team took 14th.
The most notable performance of the meet came from freshman Curran Carlile, who took first place in the men’s 5000-meter run with a time of 15:40.45, nearly 16 seconds ahead of his closest opponent. Senior David Zane finished third with a final time of 16:01.12, also in the 500-meter run, putting two Lawrence runners in the top five in that event.
Other noteworthy performances on the men’s side of the competition included one by Sam Stevens, a sophomore, who finished fifth with a time of 1:59.83, less than a second out of fourth place, in the 800-meter run. In the men’s 4×400-meter relay, the Lawrence ‘A’ team took ninth place out of 20 after clocking in with a time of 3:44.76.
On the women’s side, sophomore Rose Tepper took fourth place in the high jump with a total height of 1.56 meters. In the 300-meter run, senior Annie Sullivan clocked in a time of 11:46.40 to snag 11th place in that event.
In the relay events, the Lawrence women’s ‘A’ teams took sixth place in the 4×200-meter relay with a time of 2:05.89 and 10th place in the 4×400-meter relay after clocking in with a time of 5:11.12. Freshman Sam Luebke also finished 26th out of 44 in the 200-meter dash, clocking in a time of 30.49.
In the face of the tough competition faced by the team at the invitational, head coach Jason Fast was pleased with the team’s overall performance, saying that he felt the team “matched up well against our conference opponents.” Coach Fast also noted that the meet showed the team is in a better place than they were last year at this time.
“As a whole the team is already doing much better in just about every event than we were last year at this same point,” said Coach Fast. “We are looking better every week and we are excited for what the rest of the season has in store for us.