The Delaware club track team made their way to nearby Franklin & Marshall College for the Diplomat Open to start the 2022-23 winter track season. Despite the first meet of the season always being tough, many Blue Hens put in work to find their way to the all-time indoor performance list as well as other good performances.

The jumpers started the meet early with their events and a big chunk of the newly acquired performance list spots. Freshman Lianna Greenstein started her college career with a bang, first securing 13th place in the long jump with a jump of 4.37m, which gave her the second longest indoor jump of all time, and followed that with a 10.06m jump in triple jump, resulting in a third place overall finish and passing Jenay Valentine’s mark of 9.44m for the furthest indoor triple jump in club history. Maggie Huizinga also managed a top 10 finish with a 1.40m leap in the high jump, which landed her second all-time for the club.

The sprinters finally started their season, getting to compete for the first time this season. Freshman Gracy Back matched her fellow freshman teammate with two performance list inclusions of her own. Back started her collegiate career with a 5th place finish in the 60m hurdles at 9.85, which passed Kayleigh Miedreich for best all-time, and a 17th place finish in the 60m in 8.56 to get the third spot on the all-time list. Rilee McMahan followed close behind in the 60m in her first ever race to get 8.62 and fifth all-time for Delaware. On the men’s side, freshman Kurt Krummenacker (24.41) managed a 15th place finish in the 200, in front of his teammates Stanley Louius (25.43) and Shane Isacson (25.63).

The distance runners didn’t have their full squad due to the recently completed cross country season, but that didn’t affect their ability to bring their best efforts. Senior Sasha Latina kicked off the meet in the 5k, and finished 12th place in 17:12.89. Michael Anderson wasted no time in his 800m race, going out very hard to get himself to fourth place finish (2:00.74). Freshman Josh Pawlik put up two top 15 finishes in his college debut, getting an 11th place finish (2:09.05) in the 800 and a 13th place finish (56.72) in the 400. The men managed three top 15 finishes in the mile run, with Matthew Kwiatkowski (4:41.83) leading in 7th place, followed by Alejandro Lobo (4:49.19) in 10th and Dan Giron (4:58.02) in 14th.

The women also had themselves a day in the distance events. Freshman Kaitlyn Burke highlighted these performances with two top 10 finishes across her two events. Burke’s 10th place time of 2:42.41 ties her with Emily Hansell for 8th all time in the indoor 800m, and her 6:17.81 mile slotted her at 4th in the entire field. Burke was one of three Blue Hens to crack the top 10 in the mile, she was followed by sophomore Lauren Pollock (6:26.12) in 8th and junior Natalie Pinto (6:36.21) in 10th.

Delaware looks to continue their winter season in a month on January 14th for the River Hawk Invite at Susquehanna University.

Full meet results can be found here.