BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Lehigh women’s track and field team turned in a plethora of top finishes at the Angry Birds at Lehigh meet, highlighted by two first place finishes. Seniors E’Lana Lemon and Lauren Pietrosh each picked up victories in the weight throw and 800 meter dash, respectively, as a part of the Mountain Hawks’ strong third place performance.
"Penn, Monmouth and Winthrop are all very solid and strong teams," said Lehigh head coach Matt Utesch. "Just by competing against those kind of teams, really gets us ready for the Patriot League Championships. We’re going to look to get stronger by moving from large intervals to shorter intervals to add speed over the coming weeks."
Coming off her second Patriot League Female Field Athlete of the Week award and 10th in her illustrious career, Lemon continued her dominance in the weight throw, tossing an ECAC-qualifying distance of 17.95 meters, shattering her previous season-best of 17.66 meters set at the Army six-way meet last weekend.
Also winning her event was Pietrosh, taking the 800 meter dash with a time of 2:17.93. Following her was teammate Julia Perry as the senior posted a time of 2:18.17 for a second place finish.
"Those girls are running on strength right now and once we implement some speed training they are going to explode," said Utesch. "We you see that kind of depth, the 4x800 relay at the Patriot League Championships looks like it could be a very strong event for us and that will be a marque race."
Another sprinter to turn in a solid performance was junior Danielle Albergo, finishing second in the 400 meter dash with a time of 58.55, one of just three competitors to complete the event in less than a minute.
In the distance medley, the team of seniors Lauren Pietrosh, Brittany Pietrosh, Kathleen Ryan and Julia Perry posted a second place finish after crossing the line with a time of 12.21:56.
Also in the distance, senior Tori Berard finished third in the 3000 meters with a time of 10:33.86 and placed sixth in the mile after crossing the line in 5:18.90, adding two more strong performances for the women distance runners.
In the field events, senior Brooke Astor helped to build on Lemon’s performance with a third place result in the long jump with a distance of 5.38 meters. Last week, Astor won the Kutztown Invitational pentathlon with a total score of 3238 points, the highest score of any Patriot League performer this season.
Astor also set a personal record in the 60 meter hurdles, finishing as the top Lehigh performer in third place with a time of 8.85.
The Mountain Hawks will now host Lafayette for the Lehigh-Lafayette dual meet next Saturday beginning at 2 p.m. inside Rauch Fieldhouse. After next week’s dual meet, Lehigh will compete in three more meets before the indoor Patriot League Championships. The next home meet for the Brown and White will be the John Covert Classic on February 2.
"We’re going to give the kids a little more rest and speed work this week," said Utesch. "There’s certainly a level of competition that comes out at that meet because of the history and spectacle of it. We can’t duplicate the atmosphere of that anywhere else and we’ll be looking for faster times."