The final race of Saturday's Penn State Open was not run by athletes in a Penn State uniform. Rather, the coaches of the women's track team had the honor of running the last event.
At practice before the meet this weekend, Penn State women's track and field coach Beth Alford-Sullivan challenged the team to a bet. If anyone was able to break a school record, the coaches would have to run a relay, and the team was more than happy to take them up on the challenge.
Only two weeks into the young season, the Nittany Lions continued to rewrite the record books, as sophomore sprinter Shana Cox and hurdler sophomore Gayle Hunter both set new school records in each of their events over the weekend at the Multi-Sport Facility.
"I didn't see us take any step backwards after the opening meet last weekend," Alford-Sullivan said. "The kids looked a bit more composed, a bit cleaner on things, and so I thought it was a good step forward."
In her first time ever running the 500-meter dash, Cox shattered the 18-year-old school record by two seconds with her time of 1:10.30. She decided not to use the blocks for the race, instead using a free-standing start. Her different technique seemed to work well as she finished three seconds in front of the field.
"Shana's one who's always exuded confidence," Alford-Sullivan said. "I give her a lot of credit. She had her mind made up on making that record, and she went after it and got it."
In the 55-meter hurdles, Gayle Hunter also broke a 21-year-old school record with her time of 7.96 seconds. Although she broke the record, she finished third in the race.
Many Lions also finished impressively in other running events. Senior sprinter Sara Shoaff finished first in the 200-meter dash with a time of 24.31 seconds, followed by fellow Lions Hunter and freshman Aleesha Barber.
Penn State also finished 1-2-3 in the 400-meter dash with junior Kamilah Salaam leading the way with a time of 55.45 seconds.
In the field events, Hunter placed first in the triple jump, and Lena Bettis won the long jump. Senior Jen Leatherman continued her dominance of the throwing events winning both the 20-pound weight throw and the shot put.
"From what I can see across the board we had a really nice meet," Alford-Sullivan said. "What we asked our team was to really step up and come from within, and I thought they did that pretty well."
The meet this weekend was again a low-key meet meant to prepare the team for the more competitive meets toward the end of the season. Instead of a relay meet like last week, the Penn State Open was an opportunity for the athletes to work individually on their events, and total team points were again not counted.
This week, many athletes also had to run events back-to-back since the meet was short. Alford-Sullivan said this helped the athletes get used to a "fatigued state" that they might experience when it comes time for championships at the end of the season. Even with this added fatigue, the team still performed impressively, keeping the team optimistic for the more challenging meets ahead.
"Considering that two records were broken and people [set personal records] in events that they weren't expected to [set personal records] in, you can only imagine what's gonna happen next weekend when we have many teams here and everybody's trying to qualify for nationals," Hunter said. "It's only going to get better."
