ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Grace Mathis set a new school record in the outdoor pole vault while Unique Tuberville finished runner-up in the hammer throw to highlight the Haverford College women's outdoor track & field team's opening day at the Centennial Conference Championships. The Fords finished with four scoring individuals in the three events that wrapped up on Friday evening and currently sit in fourth place overall with a total of 16.5 points heading into Saturday.
Mathis cleared 3.17 meters (10'-4.75") to break the school record which she just set last week at Haverford's Midweek Invitational. Her new personal best was one and a half inches clear of her previous best and scored 4.5 points for the team as she tied for fourth place.
Tuberville, the school record holder in the hammer throw, had her best throw marked at 38.26 meters (125'-6") on Friday evening to place second overall. Sophia Nelson also competed in that event and had a six-foot PR to place 15th with a throw of 27.56 meters (90'-5").
Haverford's largest entered event on Friday evening was the 10,000 meter race. First-year Izzy Miller led four Fords to the finish in that race as she crossed the line in a time of 39:15.59 to place sixth. Angie Petrichenko (39:21.35) was also a scorer for Haverford with an eighth-place finish. Natalia Cordon (39:56.00) and Julia Smith (40:43.80) just missed scoring performances with their respective ninth and 10th place finishes.
The first four events of the heptathlon also took place on Friday night. Louise Bednarik entered that multi-event for the Fords and scored 506 points towards her total with a time of 29.66 seconds in the 200 meter dash for her best event on the afternoon. Bednarik was also sixth amongst her peers with a time of 18.37 seconds in the 100 meter hurdles.
Day two of the Centennial Conference Championships gets underway on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. with the heptathletes wrapping up their final three events before the women's steeplechase gets started at noon.