Instead of going home for Easter, the Irish traveled to Purdue to the Mike Poehlein Invitational. Despite rain and lightning days throughout the weekend, four athletes took first place and 23 athletes finished in the top-five at the event.
The winning times and distances came from senior Eric Quick in the men's triple jump with a distance of 15.12 meters, junior Theresa Cattuna in the women's 5,000 meter with a time of 17:11.11, senior Joanna Schultz in the women's 400 at 54.10 and sophomore John Shawel in the men's 800 at 1:53.11.
Shawel in particular was happy with his performance, considering his focus usually centers around the 1500.
"I basically had nothing to lose. I got involved early in the race and I raced less conservatively than I normally would," Shawel said.
Cattuna's time not only marked a new personal record for that distance on a track, but it also qualified her for the Big East meet.
"I am looking forward to a couple more races before Big East to improve my kick and build on today," Cattuna said.
In addition to these top finishes, the Irish earned multiple successful results across the board.
In field events, the Irish had a huge turnout for men's hammer, where junior Greg Davis took third, closely followed by junior John Belcher and sophomore Mitchell Gormley in fourth and fifth, respectively. Freshman Kendra Jennings took fourth in the women's high jump, sophomore Doug Onuscheck took third in the men's high jump and senior Jaclyn Espinoza took fourth in the women's discus.
Freshman Nevada Sorenson took second and junior Kali Watkins took third in the 100 hurdles, sophomore Sasha Blanchard took fifth in the 400 hurdles. Sophomore Allison Schroeder took second and junior Natalie Johnson took fifth in the 800, and sophomores Susanna Sullivan and Molly Hirt took third and fifth, respectively, in the 5,000.
The men also had a series of top finishes. Junior Matthew Brown took third in the 400 hurdles, junior Edward Hitchler took fifth in the 400, sophomore Mitch Lorenz took fourth in the 800, junior Greg Kiley took fourth in the 1,500 and senior Thomas Noel took fourth in the 3,000 Steeplechase.
Cattuna summed up the goals for the future for both herself and the team as a whole.
"Over the next couple of weeks I'll work on becoming more mentally and physically ready to compete with [other runners] in the race and hopefully earn some points for our team," Cattuna said.
The Irish next travel to Louisville, Ky., to compete in the Louisville Invitational on Saturday.
