SAN DIEGO, Calif. — The Middlebury College men’s and women’s track and field teams opened the outdoor portion of the schedule on Saturday by competing at the PLNU Collegiate Invitational, hosted by Point Loma Nazarene.
The Panther men won the invitational by collecting 155 points among 11 scoring teams, edging out Tufts, which finished with 151. The women finished third among 13 scoring teams with 114 points, trailing only the host Sea Lions (197) and Williams (194).
The Panthers will next continue their spring trip out west this Saturday by participating in the California Collegiate Invitational hosted by U.C. San Diego.
On the men’s side Jimmy Martinez left his mark by winning the 400-meter race in 47.78 and setting a meet record and school mark in the process. His time bested Navy’s Austin Batiste’s mark of 47.86 in 2015 for the meet record and former teammate Alex Nichols’ mark of 48.30 in the Panther record book set in 2016.
Nicholas Hendrix was second in a field of 55 runners in the 200 meters with a clocking of 21.54 seconds. The Middlebury 4-by-400-meter relay team was also second, finishing the event in 3:22.13. Harrison Knowlton added a third-place effort in the 5,000 meters, finishing in 14:56.41.
In the javelin, Taylor Moore had a heave of 165-10 to place third, while Jonathan Fisher cleared six-two to finish third in the high jump. Fisher also claimed fourth place in the 110-meter high hurdles with a time of 16.06 seconds.
John Natalone cleared the bar at 14-9 to record a third-place finish in the pole vault, while Minhaj Rahman tossed the hammer 148-1 to take fourth place.
For the women, Katherine MacCary paced the field in the 5,000 meters, finishing the day’s longest race in 17:13.03. Katie Glew had a second-place performance in the 1,500 meters, completing the event in 4:38.50.
The Panthers excelled in the throwing events, highlighted by Julia Lothrop and Helene Rowland in the javelin. Lothrop was third with a throw of 123-6, while Rowland was fourth with a distance of 117-3. Rowland was third in the shot put with a toss of 39-8.5, and Emily Ray was third in the hammer throw at 123-8.
The 4×400 relay team of Katherine McCluskey, Lucy Lang, Anna Willig and Kate Holly ran a time of 4:00.28 to take fourth place. In the 4×100 relay, the quartet of Ellie Greenberg, Holly, Alex Cook and Elizabeth Walkes combined for a time of 49.32 seconds to place fifth.