New Balance Collegiate, Day 1

If it was not the most dominant performance in Marist Track history, it certainly ranks right up there with the best ever.

On Friday morning, freshman Michelle Gaye won the Eastern section of the 3,000-meter run at the New Balance Collegiate Invitational at the Armory in 9:47.77. She stomped her section with a 23-second victory; she topped the nearest competitor in all Eastern sections by 14 seconds; it was an ECAC qualifying mark.

And, she toppled one of the oldest and most storied school records on the books: Liza Grudzinski’s 2003 mark of 9:56.47.

Yeah. Pretty good stuff indeed! When you check out her splits below, understand that after the second lap Michelle was far and away by herself and pulling away from the field. She did this as a solo effort, and an impressive one at that. It was a great thing to watch, to be sure.

In the first section, junior Katie Messina had a strong effort. Katie has been battling a slew of injury issues for the past month. She competed quite well, and ran a nice progressive negative split race (check her kilometer splits.

Lastly, on Friday night, our men’s DMR qualified for the IC4A Championships with a sixth-place finish.

3,000-meter run, Eastern Sections
1. Michelle Gaye 9:47.77** School record, ECAC qualifier
39.5, 80.3 (41.8), 2:00.5 (40.2), 2:39.6 (39.1), 3:18.7 (39.1)
3:58.3 (39.6), 4:37.6 (39.3), 5:16.8 (39.2), 5:56.2 (39.4), 6:35.3 (39.1)
7:14.8 (39.5), 7:53.2 (38.6), 8:32.0 (38.8), 9:10.2 (38.2), 9:47.77 (37.57)
Kilometer splits: 3:18.7, 3:16.6, 3:12.47

31. Katie Messina 10:46.56
41.2, 85.6 (44.4), 2:08.8 (43.3), 2:53.6 (44.8), 3:37.8 (44.2)
4:21.0 (43.2), 5:04.1 (43.1), 5:46.9 (42.8), 6:29.6 (42.7), 7:12.8 (43.2)
7:55.8 (43.0), 8:39.4 (43.6), 9:23.5 (44.1), 10:06.2 (42.7), 10:46.56 (40.36)
Kilometer splits: 3:37.8, 3:35.0, 3:33.76

Men’s distance medley relay
6. Marist 10:13.68 *IC4A qualifier
1200: Matt Panebianco, 3:08.4
400: Dan Conklin, 51.7
800: David Marthy, 1:57.4
1600: Arquimedes DelaCruz 4:15.2

NOTE TO BLOG FOLLOWERS: My posts may be limited over the next week or so as my wife, my children and I deal with some sudden and unexpected news. I will try to keep everyone up-to-date on the program's happenings, but it may not be as detailed as usual. Thanks for understanding.