Sports

Records were made to be broken

By Matt Lee

The Simon Fraser track and field team didn’t just compete two weekends ago at the University of Washington Invitational; they broke an NAIA record.

The distance medley relay team of Helen Crofts, Angela Shaw, Jessica Smith, and Michaela Kane set a new record with a time of 11:30.96, obliterating the old record of 11:43.08, set by the SFU medley team of 2005, which was held by Clan alumni Julia Howard, Rebecca Johnstone, Meredith MacGregor, and Alexandra Krasovska.

The distance medley relay is completed by four runners, with each running different lengths. In the record-breaking relay, Crofts covered one mile, Smith the 1,200m, Shaw the 800m and Kane rounding out the foursome with a 400m dash.

“It was an outstanding run by the team, and Helen had a great weekend with her performance in the 800m,” said head coach Brit Townsend to SFU Sports Information. “We had a number of personal bests this weekend, [and] I’m very pleased with how the team is progressing.”

Among those individuals who set personal best times at the University of Washington Invitational were Olivia Brennan and Brianna Kane, who competed in the 800m with times of 2:15.55 and 2:12.19, respectively. Jane Channell also set a personal best time with 7.84 in the 60m to book her ticket to the NAIA national championships.

For the men, Adam Newton ran in the 400m to a time of 48.35, while Andrew Boss covered 400m in a time of 49.06. Both runners punched their tickets into the nationals with their finish.

Newfoundland native Ryan Brockerville posted a personal best of 8:26.55 in the 3000m run while Kevin Friesen followed closely behind with a time of 8:35.77, both qualifying for the nationals.

The nationals are set to take place on March 4 in Johnson City, Tennessee.

With files from SFU Sports Information