COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Katie Sullivan won the mile in a Centennial Conference Championship meet record time, while Taylor Murphy also won the 60 meter hurdles to highlight day two of the Centennial Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships for the Haverford College women's track & field team. The Fords placed 3rd in the final team standings with 89 points.
Sullivan's winning time in the mile topped rival Felicia Koerner as both runners bested the previous meet record. The Fords' junior crossed the line is a time of 4:56.30 to top Koerner by over seven-tenths of a second. She is now second in the school record books for the event and ranked fourth in Division III as of press time. Sullivan is a now a three-time Centennial Conference Champion after winning the indoor and outdoor 800 meters last year.
Sullivan finished second in the event she entered the weekend as the defending champion. She finished the 800 meters in a time of 2:19.90, less than four-tenths of a second off the pace of Dickinson's Jamie George. Sophie Drew was sixth in that event for the Fords with a time of 2:23.90.
Taylor Murphy backed up her top seed in the 60 meter hurdles entering the meet as she was the top finisher in both the preliminary and finals rounds. Her winning time of 9.26 seconds was a new personal best and moves her to within seven-hundredths of a second for the school record that is currently held by eight-time All-American Aislinn Sowash '07. The title was the first individual conference championship for Murphy who was also a member of Haverford's championship 4x200 relay last year.
Murphy was also fourth in the 60 meter dash after qualifying to the finals with the second quickest time in the preliminaries. The reigning conference rookie of the year also had a fourth place finish to her credit in the 200 meters with a time of 27.03 seconds. Marisa Antinori also scored for the Fords in the 60 meter dash, placing seventh in the finals after of personal best time of 9.17 seconds in the preliminaries.
Haverford nearly had two more champions after runner-up finishes from Nicole Giannetti and Claire Sargent. Giannetti recorded a personal best time of 10:04.43 in the 3,000 meters and was only topped by Koerner of Johns Hopkins who has the top time in Division III this year in that event. Giannetti's PR keeps her third in Haverford's indoor record books and gives her the 24th fastest time in Division III as of press time.
Sargent entered the weekend as the defending conference champion in the shot put and finished the day with a personal best throw of 12.55 meters. Despite moving within two and a half inches of the school record, Sargent was topped by Swarthmore's Maggie O'Neil. O'Neil's best toss of the day was marked just one inch further.
Haverford also had scoring performances in all of the relays throughout the day. The Fords' had fourth place showings in the 4x200 and 4x800 relays to go along with an eighth place finish in the 4x400 relay to close the championship meet.
Women's indoor track & field will now look to the national rankings for any potential qualifiers to the Division III Championships. The Fords will have the option to enter last chance meets before the NCAA meet in Naperville, Illinois on Friday, March 10 and Saturday, March 11.