ROCHESTER, NY – The Alfred University women's track & field team finished fourth out of the seven teams at the 2024 Empire 8 Outdoor Track & Field Championships on Friday and Saturday at St. John Fisher University.
 
"This team is truly something else. I cannot express how proud I am of what they have accomplished," Head Coach Matt Phillips '10 said. "All of the hard work they have been putting in for months paid off this weekend. It was amazing to watch."
 
AU won 2-of-3 relays on the weekend and two individual events to pace them for a score of 73 points, defeating Houghton and their 65 points, Russell Sage College with nine and Hartwick College with four. The Highlanders of Houghton only won two events.
 
Three out of the four victories also resulted in new school records while the fourth was just shy of breaking a record. The first record that fell was the 4x800-meter relay record of 9:52.79, set in 1999 by Jen Ares, Traci Lincoln, Jen Bonner and Millicent Boadi. The team of Sarah Lutkins (Union Springs, NY/Union Springs), Annabelle Townsend (Woodsville, NH/Woodsville), McKenzie Hall (Hornell, NY/Hornell) and Olivia Gilbert (Ontario, NY/Wayne Central) combined for a time of 9:48.86. Gilbert was clocked in as the anchor leg, having run a split of 2:15.09 which would have smashed her already-established outdoor 800-meter run school record of 2:17.63. The split vaulted the Saxons past Houghton, St. John Fisher and Nazareth University for the come-from-behind, historical win.
 
Gilbert ended up breaking her own record in the open 800-meter run, besting her previous time with her new time of 2:17.47, which also made her a back-to-back outdoor 800-meter Empire 8 Champion (four-time champion between both indoor and outdoor 800-meter runs). She defeated the rest of the field by over 3.02 seconds.
 
Anne Spila (Mechanicsburg, PA/Trinity) soared past her own Alfred University school record in the heptathlon, breaking her previous point total set in 2023 of 4,071 points with her new score of 4,213 points. Her point total puts her at 42^nd in the nation. Spila had top marks in four out of the seven events and was in the top-3 in all but one. Following behind Spila in the heptathlon was Bianca Durso (Utica, NY/New Hartford Senior) who claimed second place with 3,855 points, defeating the third place finisher by 34 points. Durso was the top-scorer in the high jump and was top-5 in all of her events.
 
Zoe Rainville (Saranac, NY/Saranac) ran the first leg of the 4x400-meter relay, followed by Spila, Durso and Gilbert who, once again, had a come-from-behind win as they were down to third place after the first 800 meters with Durso getting the Saxons into second place, setting up Gilbert to run a sub-minute split as the anchor. They combined for a winning time of 4:05.90 and just missed the 1999 school record of 4:05.20, set by Katy Gaydos, Jen Brewer, Nancy Callen and Ares.
 
Spila took second in the 100-meter hurdles on Saturday to earn eight team points. She clocked in a time of 15.48, just behind the winning time of 15.34. Delaney Prather (North East, PA/North East) was the last Saxon to earn All-Empire 8, having to earn third place or higher as she threw 32.32m (106'-0") to take third in the javelin throw on Friday.
 
Durso took fourth in the high jump (outside of having to do it the day before for the heptathlon) with a clearance at 1.52m (4'-11.75"), earning four points in the event. Townsend claimed fifth place in the 400-meter hurdles to earn two points with her time of 1:09.69 and Hall tacked on a point with a time of 5:04.67 in the 1,500-meter run to close out the individual podium finishers for the Saxons.
 
The 4x100-meter relay team of Natalya Ryckman (New Eagle, PA/Ringgold), Townsend, Rainville and Octavia Fred (Dunkirk, NY/Dunkirk) took fourth with a time of 54.26 to earn four points.
 
The Saxons will next take a small group of athletes to Allegheny College on Thursday, May 9 for a Last Chance Meet in hopes to qualify for All-Atlantic Regional Track & Field Conference (AARTFC) Outdoor Championships at SUNY Cortland.