Over the weekend, Notre Dame traveled to California to compete in the Stanford Invitational.
The meet in Palo Alto, California, marked the second meet of the outdoor season for the Irish. The women's team finished third in the ACC indoor championships and fifth in the NCAA indoor championships and coming off of the two high-intensity outings, some notable athletes were did not compete in the Stanford Invitational, including seniors Molly Seidel, Margaret Bamgbose and graduate student Kaila Barber.
The absence of these athletes left room for some younger players on the team to shine. In the field events, the Irish left the meet with two first-place finishes from juniors Anthony Shivers in the men’s discus with a distance of 54.15 meters, and Indi Jackson in the women’s shot put with a distance of 14.76 meters. Freshman Alexa Coubal claimed second place in the women’s shot put closely behind her teammate Jackson with a distance of 12.96 meters. Lena Madison also notched a top ten finish in the women’s hammer throw with a distance of 51.65 meters, putting her at seventh place overall in the event.
The track events also yielded some strong performances for the Irish with two top-10 finishes in the men’s 800-meter run from junior Patrick O’Connell and sophomore Kirk Hansen, who finished sixth and seventh respectively. O'Connell finished with a time of 1:50.22 while Hansen followed with 1:52.64. In the women’s 800, sophomore Jessica Harris claimed the top time of 2:06.82 among the four Irish athletes running in the event to put her at twelfth place overall. Her teammate, senior Danielle Aragon, earned 13th place, followed by junior Jamie Marvil in 14th place and sophomore Stephanie Knight in 15th place overall.
Junior Alexa Pelletier also claimed a top-10 finish for Notre Dame, coming in ninth in section 3 of the 5,000-meter run with a time of 16:13.96.
The Irish will have a chance to compete again this coming weekend as they travel to Arizona State for the Sun Angel Track Classic.
