In the battle between Kentucky and Indiana schools, the Hoosierland team of Notre Dame and Indiana fell just short of a third-consecutive Louisville Border Battle victory at Saturday's meet in Louisville, Ky.
Going up against the Commonwealth team of Kentucky and Louisville, the tandem of the Irish and the Hoosiers managed to keep things interesting even though they lost 204-196.
Senior Rebecca Tracy and junior Michelle Brown set meet records during Saturday's contest.
Tracy continued to dominate in both the 1,500-meter and 800-meter races, bringing home victories and setting the meet record in both events. Not to be outdone, Brown set a meet record of her own with a 52.62-second time in the women's 400-meter race.
Senior Lauren Leniart and junior Mary Esther Gourdin joined the pair on the podium, who tied to win the triple jump. Junior Megan Yanik, also walked away as the winner in the 400-meter hurdles. All three athletes were joined by Irish teammates in the top-four of their respective events. In the 400-meter hurdles, Yanik finished ahead of freshman Margaret Bamgbose, sophomore Michelle Rotondo, and junior Jaclyn Winkel, respectively. In the triple jump, juniors Kelly Burke and Jessie Christian contributed third- and fourth-place efforts, respectively.
On the men's side, junior Logan Renwick won both the long jump and the triple jump. In the long jump, Renwick narrowly edged out his Irish teammate, sophomore Keith Mesidor, by only 0.06 meters.
Notre Dame dominated the men's 400-meter race, as sophomore Chris Giesting, junior Patrick Feeney, and senior Brendan Dougherty took the top three places. Giesting said the close competition between teammates is nothing new.
"We are all competitive and we don't like losing, even to each other, so the fact that we have to run against each other everyday just brings out the competitor in all of us to get better," Giesting said. "We go into each practice with the motto [that we're] just trying to get better."
Despite being on the losing side, the Irish men and women combined for 43 top-five finishes. Giesting said the meet gave the Irish many positives to build on for their next competition, even though they did not walk away the victors..
"It was a bummer that we lost this weekend, but there are bigger things ahead of us," he said. "This meet was more of a friendly competition. We have our goals set on the Big East Championship, and after that qualifying for nationals."
The Irish will split up Thursday, with some team members competing in Walnut, Calif., for the Mt. SAC Relays and others traveling to Bloomington, Ind., for the Polytan Invitational.
Contact Cole Schietinger at cschieti@nd.edu
