Emily Anderson Hits NCAA Provisional Standard at 3,000m

Gaeto, Guevel Post School Records, ECAC-Qualifications

02/09/08 10:30PM

NEWPORT NEWS, VA - Christopher Newport’s Freeman Center has historically been a good host for William and Mary, and Saturday was no exception as the women’s track and field team earned five ECAC qualifications, two school records, and an NCAA-provisional mark in action at the Vince Brown Invitational. Full results were not immediately available Saturday night.

Results to Four Places

Sophomore Emily Anderson (Golf, Ill.) was the Tribe’s top performer, running 9:27.88 in the 3,000m to win the event and break the NCAA provisional-qualifying barrier. Her time, which broke the Freeman Center record set by head coach Kathy Newberry ’00 over four years ago, ranks fourth in school history, and is 14th nationally on the NCAA top-times list published February 6. Last year, the top 19 runners were invited to the national championships.

Two school records also fell Saturday at CNU, both with ECAC-qualifying performances. In the long jump, sophomore Alyssa Gaeto (Brentwood, Tenn.) won with a career-best effort of 19’ 0.75”. She is the first Tribe athlete to jump over 19 feet, indoors or outdoors. Freshman Katie Guevel (Burlington, Kan.) ran an ECAC-worthy 8.28 seconds in the preliminaries of the 55m hurdles, and took third in the finals with a school-record time of 8.17. It marks Guevel’s fourth school record so far this season, and gives her both of the indoor hurdles records (55m and 60m).

Two more Tribe athletes earned ECAC bids at the meet. In the 3,000m, junior Lynn Morelli (Philadelphia, Pa.) was second behind Anderson with a personal-best time of 9:47.82. Sophomore Nicole Kazuba (Chantilly, Va.) won the pole vault with a height of 12’ 1.5”, breaking the ECAC-barrier for the fourth time.

Also in the pole vault, senior Erin Gnass (Brentwood, Tenn.) took second with a personal-best height of 11’ 1.75”, moving up to fourth on the College’s all-time top performer’s list. Guevel advanced from the preliminaries of the 55m dash as the top seed in a time of 7.31 seconds before taking third in the finals by running 7.28, making her the third-fastest sprinter in school history at that distance and the fastest since the late 1980s. Sophomore Carly Morse (Sumerduck, Va.) won the shot put with a career-best put of 44 feet, ranking her sixth in school history.

In other performances of note, junior Ashley Madonick (Seaside Park, N.J.) won the 800m run with a personal-best time of 2:18.40. Sophomore Ashley Williams (Williamsburg, Va.) was second in the shot put with a personal-best put of 41’ 2.25”. Joining her with silver medals was the 4x400m relay of Dana Harvey (Mechanicsville, Va.), Madonick, Kelly McElroy (Wyomissing, Pa.), and Ariel Burbey (Blacksburg, Va.), timing 4:05.58. Senior Emily Gousen (Arlington, Va.) and sophomore Meghan Burns (Coopersburg, Pa.) took third and fourth in the 3,000m run, timing 10:00.77 and 10:03.21, respectively. Also third and fourth were senior Nicole Bost (Mechanicsville, Va.) and sophomore Jennifer Garrott (Burke, Va.) in the pole vault, clearing heights of 10’ 8” and 10’ 2”, respectively.

The Tribe is back in action next weekend, February 16, with the Chick-Fil-A Carolina Invitational in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.