Indoor Track relay team breaks school record, earns All-American honors

“The women competed in two events and broke two school records and earned All-American honors in both, so it was an excellent weekend,” said Coach Erik Nedeau.

The evening of March 14, tri-captain Kate Hamill ’03, Lyndsey Scott ’06, Jessamyn Conell-Price ’06, and Carter Hamill ’05 competed in the distance medley relay. This quartet entered the race seeded ninth, knowing that they needed a top-eight finish to receive All-American honors. Kate Hamill led off with the 1200-meter leg and handed off the baton in fourth place. Scott took off on the 400-meter leg, giving the baton to Conell-Price in third place. Conell-Price ran a powerful 800-meter, keeping the team in third place, before Carter Hamill finished the final leg for a seventh-place finish. The seventh-place finish, courtesy of a new school record time of 11:58.58, gave the team All-American mention.

“To qualify for NCAAs with a school record run the week before, and then to go out and break that time by two seconds and grab All-American honors the next week without any let down was a great indication of how tough the girls are,” said Coach Nedeau.

On Saturday, Carter Hamill took to the track alone for the 5000-meter race. Last year, Hamill was the national champion in this event, but this year Hamill entered the race seeded eighth in a very competitive field. She ran her hardest in the last stretch and earned sixth place with a new school record of 17:09.14. Hamill already has six All-American awards.

“[Carter] ran a very smart race, holding back a bit when the rest of the field took it out faster than most of them are capable of running, and then moving up as the race went on,” said Kate Hamill. “She ran her best indoor 5K time, faster than she ran at Nationals last year.”