On Friday, Geneseo's outdoor distance runners traveled to Bucknell University to participate in the Bucknell Distance Carnival. The next day, the rest of the track team competed at the Roberts Wesleyan Invitational.
The Bucknell Distance Carnival, which is considered a national caliber event, brought together 74 collegiate teams and clubs from the East Coast. Head coach Dave Prevosti called it, "The premiere meet on the Eastern seaboard. We ran against teams from every division."
For the women's team, junior Sandra Goettelman led the way with a third place finish in the 5,000-meter race with a time of 17 minutes, 47.54 seconds. Goettelman's performance was the 10th best time in Geneseo history for that event. Fellow junior Danielle Hunt placed 10th in the same event, finishing 18:08.53.
Senior Laura Iafrati turned in another excellent performance with a fifth place finish in the 10,000-meter race. Her time of 36:56.53 was good enough to earn a provisional qualification for the NCAA championship meet next month.
Other notable efforts on the field that day include freshman Kelly Brunscheen's 19th place finish in the 400-meter hurdles, junior Erin Marks's 17th place finish in the 1,500-meter race and freshman Alyssa Smith's 24th place finish in the same race.
On the men's side, sophomore Mark Streb and senior Brett Dolan turned in the top performances of the day. Streb finished second in the 1,500-meter race with a time of 3:55.33. "Mark ran a great race. It was definitely one of the highlights of our meet," said Prevosti, singling out Streb's performance. Dolan finished third in the 10,000-meter race, crossing the finish line with a time of 32:11.51.
Senior Ryan Mulcahy also excelled, finishing 10th in the 5,000-meter event in 15:02.57.
The Geneseo team did particularly well in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Senior Will Haskell finished in 9th place with a NCAA provisionally qualifying time of 9:21.74. Junior Bobby Henchen came in 13th overall in the steeplechase with a time of 9:31.24. Sophomore Bill Juda was just seconds behind him in 15th place with a time of 9:36.24. All three athletes garnered a spot on the top 10 steeplechase finishes in Geneseo history.
Next weekend the teams split up again as the distance runners travel to Cortland for a meet against their conference rivals and the rest of the team travels to Brockport on Saturday.