Eight different men's and women's track runners ran well enough at the Patriot Games at George Mason University on Saturday to make it into the top 10 in school history in their respective events.
Individual success did not translate into team results, however, as the men finished seventh overall and the women finished in 11th.
On the women's team, senior Kate Lilley pulled in the sole win for AU, taking the mile in 5:08.71, placing her fifth all-time in program history for the event. Meanwhile, fellow senior Cathleen Ford ran the 1000-meter race in 3:01.96, good for fourth best all-time in school history. Sophomore Janis Irish also made the record books, running the 200-meter dash in 29.01 seconds, good for seventh best in program history.
Rounding out the women who ran top 10 program times were freshmen Mary Jane Egan and Gena Turner. Egan ran the 1000-meter race in 3:09.52, good for eighth place all-time, while Turner placed ninth all-time in the 200-meter with a time of 29.18 seconds.
For the men, sophomore Dan King ran the fifth fastest 400-meter dash in school history with a time of 51.33 seconds. Freshman Morgan Block ran two top 10 races, in the 200-meter and 400-meter dash. He set a time of 24.05 seconds, good for sixth all-time in the 200 meter and 52.42 seconds placing him ninth all-time in AU history in the 400-meter dash.
With 17 events total, Navy took the women's team competition with a total of 142.7 points, winning by more than 55 points over second place University of Richmond. AU finished 11th out of 13 schools with a total of 15 points, but fell just eight points shy of seventh place University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Meet host George Mason took the men's team competition with a total of 128 points, winning by almost 60 points over second place UMBC. As with the women, the men found themselves toward the tail end of the teams competing, all of which finished within 10 points of each other. The men's team finished seventh overall with 41 points.
The Eagles' next meet is at the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden in New York, where the Eagles will try to defend their championship in the 4x800-meter relay, an event that AU has won the last three years.
