The outdoor season for Fordham Track & Field is under way. After last week’s opener at Stony Brook University, the Rams headed for Rider University this past weekend to compete in the Rider 5-Way Invitational.
Starting on the women’s side, Fordham took home two first place finishes in Lawrenceville. Graduate student Tiffany Hanna won the women’s discus throw with an impressive distance of 40.98m, well ahead of Sacred Heart’s Sarah Mitchell (35.81m) in second place.
The Rams were also victorious in the women’s 3000m steeplechase, where sophomore Clodagh McGroary finished first, coming in at 11:57.90. Fellow sophomore Maddy Kopec joined McGroary on the podium, finishing third with a time of 12:22.12.
Freshman Caroline McDonagh finished second in the 3000m race (10:49.76) and junior Kyla Hill took second in the 400m (57.89). In the 1500m, the Rams had three finishers in the top four: senior Helen Connolly in second, graduate student Germain Harbaugh in third and junior Bridget Alex in fourth.
Fordham also saw success in the field events, where senior Casey Metzler came in second in the hammer throw with a final distance of 43.56m and graduate student Kathryn Kelly placed fourth in the triple jump at 11.15m.
The Fordham women’s team ultimately finished the competition with 128 points, good enough for third place out of five teams. Rider won first prize with 245 points.
On the men’s side, the sole first place finish of the day came in the 4×400 relay, where the quartet of graduate student Antony Misko, sophomore Erik Brown and seniors Zalen Nelson and Patrick Tuohy won the event with a time of 3:24.46.
Nelson also nabbed a third place finish in the 1500m with a time of 4:01.07. The Rams additionally received solid placements from Eric Jacobson and Brown, who finished the 800m in third and fourth place. Lastly, senior Chase Krug snatched a place on the podium in the 400m hurdles, finishing in third with a time of 1:03.89
The Fordham men’s team ended competition in fourth place on 65 points, while Rider finished first for a sweep of both the men’s and women’s competitions on their home track.
Next Saturday, the Rams head south to Williamsburg, Virginia for the Colonial Relays at Zable Stadium, before heading back to New York for the Metropolitan Championship on April 9 at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island against the Manhattan College Jaspers.