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BETHLEHEM, Pa. – First-year Laura Reigle made history in her first rivalry meet as a Mountain Hawk, breaking her own school record to become the first female in Lehigh history to jump 4.00m. On top of Reigle’s record breaking performance, the Lehigh women’s track and field team continued to shine as the team defeated Lafayette 108.5-72.5 on Saturday in Rauch Fieldhouse to claim its 14th straight victory over the Leopards in the Rivalry presented by Lehigh Valley Orthopedic Institute.
“The one thing I’ve been pushing the team on, over and over again this season, has been ‘You guys have to do a better job of emoting in performance’ in other words, when someone is ready to perform, you call their name, you clap, you cheer before the performance, in the performance, after the performance,” said head coach Khayla Atte. “Because what that does is when you put something out there to another person, you’re giving them more energy and then when they perform and it gets better and better, you also get something back.”
“The one thing that they did well is they took the wave of the first event on the track for the women and then you saw the throwers’ synergy hit the long jump which then translated to the pole vault and it just kept going,” Atte continued. “That’s not something we consistently do well but it’s something we need to be better at. I saw that today and that’s why you saw performances get better as we go.”
The Mountain Hawks opened up their annual dual meet against the Leopards by sweeping three field events. Lehigh started the day off with a win in the high jump, led by junior Kerry Perna who finished first with a mark of 1.57m. First-years Melanie LaCorte (1.57m) and Gretchen Haray (1.52m) showed no signs of nerves in their first rivalry meet, finishing second and third, respectively, in the high jump.
Lehigh continued to dominate in the jumps, winning the long jump, triple jump and pole vault. In the long jump, the Mountain Hawks picked up their second sweep of the day with sophomore Keisha Modi (5.50m) finishing first, senior Avery Roze (5.29m) finishing second and sophomore Lillian Mauger (5.28m) finishing third.
Casey Talamini-Kelemen picked up a win of her own in the triple jump. The sophomore finished first overall with a mark of 11.48m. Junior Nina Cialone followed suit, finishing second with a mark of 11.34m while senior Rachel Sequeira completed the sweep, finishing third with a mark of 11.04m.
Reigle’s school record earned her another first-place finish in her first year as a Mountain Hawk. Sophomore Randi Conroy finished second overall with a mark of 3.67m. Both Reigle and Conroy ended Saturday with ECAC qualifying marks.
“Laura is doing better with being relaxed under pressure,” said Atte. “She tends to be very focused but today she had really good vibes. She was allowing what was happening around her to positively affect her performance so she could make adjustments and go for it. She definitely has more in her. Definitely another six inches if not more but she’s a first-year so it’s great to watch first-years make adjustments and do well so it’s exciting.”
Lehigh continued to dominate on the track, earning first-place finishes in the first seven events. Junior Christina Yakaboski claimed the Mountain Hawks’ first track victory on Saturday, winning the mile with a time of 5:04.18. Lehigh went on to sweep the event with first-year Lucy Afanasewicz (5:05.89) finishing second and junior Abigail Tenreiro (5:10.18) finishing third.
Following Yakaboski’s win in the mile, the Mountain Hawks showed no signs of slowing down on the track. Senior Ashley Griesmeyer earned Lehigh’s first sprints victory of the day. Griesmeyer won the 60m hurdles with an ECAC qualifying time of 8.67 to become third all-time. Graduate student Chae Kim followed close behind, finishing second with a time of 9.06.
The Mountain Hawks’ sprinters continued to shine as they went on to claim three more first-place finishes. First-year Grace Kennedy added her name to the top ten all-time list, winning the 400m with a time of 58.08 to become tied for sixth. Fellow first-year Abigail Kleber (1:00.20) finished second while graduate student Lauren Powell (1:00.68) finished third.
Junior Ashley Struck made her 500m debut but showed no signs of nerves as she won the event with a time of 1:16.92 to become sixth all-time. In the 60m, first-year Gianna Mangili earned her first rivalry win, finishing first with a time of 7.88. Griesmeyer finished second in the 60m with a personal best of 8.01.
“Ashley Struck, when we had some goals meetings during preseason, came in with a sheet of paper and told me exactly what she was planning,” Atte said. “She wrote it down in order of preseason, indoor, outdoor, what times, what marks, that’s it. She has a very, “I’m going to do this’ attitude and when you have a student-athlete like that, as a coach you can’t get in their way. You just have to say, ‘Okay. I support you.”
Lehigh’s middle distance and distance runners wrapped up Saturday with four more first-place finishes for the Mountain Hawks. Sophomore Lauryn Heskin finished first in the 800m with a personal best of 2:17.79 while senior Andrea Miller won the 1000m with a personal best of 2:56.60. Fellow senior Elena Perez-Segnini followed suit, finishing second in the 1000m with a time of 2:59.41.
“The 500 meters and the 1000 meters are not highly contested events,” Atte said. “You don’t see them very often. They’re very hard events because someone is either stepping up or stepping down. I think that everyone who competed in those two events showed guts in a totally different way.
“On the women’s side we had some that were 800 specialists, some that were 200 or 400 specialists and someone who was a multi,” Atte continued. “It was a crazy mix of people but it was like, ‘We’re all just going to show up.’ I think that was the exciting part, if I put you in a situation where I know you’ve trained for it, will you just compete and believe in yourself?Because you can’t figure out in your mind how to run 500 meters or 1000 meters, you just have to do it. Those were two events that I thought were really exciting to watch.”
With its 14th straight victory secured, Lehigh wrapped up Saturday with two relay races and showed no signs of slowing down. In the first relay, Mauger, Struck, Powell and first-year Amber Barrios teamed up to run in the 4×400 relay. The team picked up the Mountain Hawks’ 12th victory of the day, winning the race with a time of 4:01.48.
In the final race of the meet, the Mountain Hawks claimed their final victory in the 4×800 relay. Kleber ran alongside seniors Allison Duane and Annalize Davis and junior Simone Davey to win the event with a time of 9:46.68.
“Current athletes can compare themselves to everyone, all the time, in real time, so chances are half of them have already looked on TFFRs to see how their ranking has changed in the Patriot League” Atte said. “As amazing as that is, they can be paralyzing to some of them. For some of them, it’s going to positively affect their performance because now they have more belief in themselves.
“For some of them, it’s going to almost create a paralysis so I’m hoping that we lean and skew towards the side of ‘I’m actually better than I thought I was,.’ continued Atte.”That tends to be something that I’m always pushing. You have to believe in yourself more. I think you hold back too much so you have to lean in and believe in yourself in an undying fashion.”
The Lafayette dual meet marks the final home meet of the season for Lehigh. The Mountain Hawks will travel to New York City on Feb. 3-4 to compete at the Scarlet Knight Open at the Armory.
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