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BY JAYMES FAIRFAX-COLUMBO

In print | Published April 24, 2008

As she approached the finish line en route to personal record in the steeplechase, Rebecca Woo ’11 couldn’t believe her eyes. Could it be, a beautiful oasis spanning the horizon before her?

Alright, so maybe it was just the water pit and maybe the heat wasn’t so bad that the Garnet women suffered hallucinations at this past weekend’s Widener Invitational, but it was pretty oppressive. Despite the sweltering temperatures, however, the ladies displayed some impressive performances and even managed to set a couple of personal records and season-best times.

Action kicked off on Friday with the 5000 meters. Nyika Corbett ’10 ran a strategically sound race, pacing herself to a third-place finish in a time of 18:27.25. She was followed in by Emma Stanley ’09 (19:11.73) and Faith Pampel ’09 (19:57.52), with all three performances dipping under the Conference Championship standard of 20:48.47. Additionally, Bettina Tam ’10 made her season debut, pacing herself to a time of 22:54.50.

The Garnet women were also well represented in the middle distance events. Lauren Deluca ’10 set her second consecutive PR (she PR’d in the 800 last week), completing the 1500 meters in 5:04.73. In commenting on her progression, Deluca said, “I’m happy to be having a good season. My teammates are inspiring me with their balls-to-the-wallness. Everyone else is going balls-to-the-wall — why can’t I? I’m just so freaking excited!”

Deluca was joined by Melina Healey ’08 who completed the race in 5:16.06. In the 800 meters, Cait Mullarkey ’09 set a season-best time of 2:17.37, good for a third-place finish (the race was won by a former Canadian Olympian). Cait Russell ’11 also competed in the two-lapper, finishing in 2:38.57. All four marks met the respective Conference standards of 5:19.58 and 2:39.37.

As alluded to earlier, Woo made her steeplechase debut, clearing numerous barriers and water pits on the way to her Conference qualifying performance of 12:58.49. The time also lands her in third place on the Swarthmore all-time list.

In describing her first steeplechase, Woo said, “I thought it was really exciting; I’ve never run a race with barriers before. Something about jumping over barriers just makes you happy, at least for the first few laps. It starts to get tiring though, accelerating into the barriers and having to find your pace again and I had to use muscles that I don’t normally use … I think next time I’ll be better able to race it though, now that I know how to run it.”

The Garnet women also had a strong field contingent, with Nathalie De Gaiffier ’09 competing in both the long and triple jumps, setting a PR distance of 8.71 meters in the latter. That jump was good enough to land her a spot at the Centennial Conference Championships.

Heather Hightower ’09 also competed in multiple events, throwing the discus 21.25 meters on Friday afternoon before rocketing the shot 8.60 meters on Saturday.

While the rest of the Garnet women were busy at Widener, however, Bess Ritter ’09 was winning the 5000 meters at the Connecticut College Silfen Invitational. Ritter’s time of 19:02.67 was a season-best performance and a Conference qualifying mark by a wide margin. The performance also marked Ritter’s first collegiate win.

Perhaps just as exciting at the women’s performances at the meet, however, is the anticipation that the team feels for the upcoming Penn Relays. Mullarkey and men’s team compatriot Ross Weller ’08 will both be representing Swat in the steeplechase on Thursday night (Distance Night, which also happens to be free to the public). Mullarkey and Weller both missed NCAA provisional marks (11:13 and 9:23 respectively) by small margins in their last steeple races, something they hope to rectify at the elite meet. As Coach Peter Carroll explained, “It’s not easy to find a deep, quality steeple, and Penn allows for this.”

Competing in the Penn Relays is also deeply entrenched in the Swarthmore tradition — in fact, recent grad Paul Thibodeau ’06 worked as an official last year and Marc Jeuland ’00 competed in the 10,000 meters last year.

Additionally, the Relay Carnival is organized by Swat grad and McCabe Mile (won over Ride-the-Tide by Woo for the women and Mickey Katz ’08 for the men) founder Dave Johnson ’73. Coach Carroll elaborated on the role of Penn Relays in the Swarthmore season, as he stated, “There isn’t another meet in the country that has the tradition Penn does. It’s been hosted 115 years consecutively now. The fact that we represent every year is important to the program; it helps our recruiting and it gives us profile. It’s just good to be part of it year after year.”

The Garnet will next be in action on Thursday, April 24 at the Penn Relays and on Saturday, April 26 at the College of New Jersey Lions Invitational.

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