GENESEO, NY -- The Alfred University women's track & field team traveled to SUNY Geneseo for a two-day meet on April 4th and 5th, 2025.

On Friday, Natalya Ryckman (New Eagle, PA/Ringgold) opened the two-day meet with a phenomenal performance in the hammer throw. Ryckman measured a personal best throw of 41.66 meters. This throw placed her 12 out of 46 competing athletes. 

Zoe Rainville (Saranac, NY/Saranac) competed in the 200-meter dash. She ran her collegiate best time of 27.53 seconds, which placed her as the 26th fastest competitor out of 61. 

Annabelle Townsend (Woodsville, NH/Woodsville) won the third heat of the 400-meter hurdles. She was first to cross the finish line at a time of 1:09.87. She placed 12th overall out of the 25 athletes who raced. 

The 4x100-meter relay team took sixth place with a time of 53.41 seconds. Rainville started the race for the Saxons, followed by Townsend at the second leg. Ryckman was at third to hand off to Anne Spila (Mechanicsburg, PA/Trinity) who anchored the relay team. 

"You don't need a perfect day to do great things," Head Coach Matt Phillips '10 said. "Our team certainly embraced that mentality today."

"We spent this past week training and planning our strategy," Assistant Coach Bill Sortore said. "We showed up to pouring rain and 20-mph winds. Despite the conditions, we saw many personal and season bests. With 40 years of track and field it's days like this that I measure the quality of a team by how they stand up to such extreme conditions. These two teams kept their spirits high."

"The team did a great job battling through tough conditions with the wind and rain throughout the day," Graduate Assistant Kevin Flint commented. "This meet gave us a chance to focus more on competing rather than chasing times and the athletes responded well. We saw several strong performances today, especially for a meet this early in the season which sets us up for an exciting stretch ahead."

The Saxons travel to Juniata College, PA next weekend to compete on Saturday April 12th.