In what can be considered a season of rebuilding, three Lady Golden Eagles qualified for the PSAC’s while participating in the Division II Challenge in Findlay, Oh. on Saturday.
Molly Smathers, Lisa Nickel, and Ciara Shorts all went into the weekend with the goal of qualifying for PSACs and all three achieved their goal.
“We talked about what they would run and all three chose the race they would do. Their individual goals were to qualify and they accomplished it,” said Interim Head Coach D.J. Bevevino.
Both Smathers and Nickel qualified for their efforts in the 800-meter run. Smathers finished 15th in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:21.41 while Nickel finished 21st with a time of 2:24.57.
All the while, Shorts qualified for PSAC’s in the Mile run after finishing 19th with a time of 5:28.90.
Bevevino said the girls will pick different races for each meet with the goal of qualifying for PSAC’s.
“Next time they will chose different races so if they qualify they have options when they get to the PSACs,” he said.
The Golden Eagles also had multiple top 10 finishes while participating in the Findlay Open on Friday. Kait Briggs and Kristine Mellor finished in the top 10 twice each.
Briggs finished 9th in the Mile run with a time of 6:02.38 while her time of 2:34.7 led her to a 10th place finish in the 800-meter run.
Mellor took 8th place in both the high jump and the triple jump. She had a distance of 4-8 and one fourth in the high jump and a distance of 30-4 and one fourth in the triple jump.
“Their performance overall, I told the girls I was satisfied. For some of the girls, it was their best performance of the season. With the quality of competition, we’re not quite where we need to be but we’re getting better week to week,” said Bevevino.
For the team, it has been a learning experience as Bevevino only recently took over the team as interim head coach. He said it’s going well but he’s hoping to get some more girls on the team maybe even some girls currently at Clarion who ran track and field while in high school but never considered continuing on in college.
“With our girls, it has been an enjoyable experience and I believe they are going to be successful,” said Bevevino.
