SWARTHMORE, Pa. - Senior Hope Rainey claimed her second straight Centennial Conference crown in the 3,000-meter steeplechase to highlight a strong showing by the Haverford College women's track & field team on the second day of the outdoor conference championships hosted by Swarthmore College.
Rainey became just the second repeat winner in the women's steeplechase in the history of the conference with a career-best time of 10 minutes, 56.43 seconds. The dominating performance saw the senior take over 12 seconds off her previous personal-best time while crossing the line over 20 seconds faster than the next closest competitor. Rainey's time currently ranks 13th on the NCAA Division III performance list. Fellow senior Nora Howe just missed adding another point for the Fords in the event with a career-best time of 11:56.99 that was good for ninth.
In the final event of the day, Rainey joined forces with Clarice Bourland, Katie Balmer and Emily Scott to register a fourth-place finish in the 4x800 relay (9:23.26).
Bourland and Balmer had both run to qualifying times in the 800-meter run preliminaries earlier in the afternoon. Bourland, seeded 12th in the event, finished sixth in the prelims with a career-best mark of 2:18.15 while Balmer's season-best time of 2:18.36 ranked seventh. Sophomore Nora Weathers also qualified for Sunday's final in the 800 with a heat-winning time of 2:19.19.
Running in her final conference meet, senior Erin Seglem came through with a career-best time of 59.46 seconds in the 400-meter run to qualify for the final on Sunday.
Freshman Brittany Steele, who won gold medals in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes at this year's indoor conference meet, will look to repeat the feat on the outdoor track as she qualified for the finals in both events over the course of Saturday's action. Steele tied for the second-fastest time in the 100m (12.69) but later recorded the top time in the 200m with a personal-best mark of 26 seconds.
Dickinson College leads in the team standings entering the last day of the meet with 61 points while Haverford sits in ninth (18 points).
The schedule for the final day of action at Swarthmore includes 15 events beginning with the high jump at 11 a.m. An awards ceremony, scheduled for 4:15 p.m., will cap the weekend.