The Notre Dame track and field teams entered the final month of the indoor season with a busy weekend at home and afar. The Irish sent pentathletes to the Kansas State University DeLoss Dodds Invitational on Friday while also competing in South Bend at the Meyo Invitational between Friday and Saturday.
KSU DeLoss Dodds Invitational
Graduate superstar Jadin O’Brien put on a show in Manhattan, winning the pentathlon with a score of 4,552 points that broke her own school record. O’Brien won three different legs of the pentathlon — the 60-meter hurdles in 8.23 seconds, the shot put with a heave of 13.39m and the 800m with a time of 2:13.54.
Fellow graduate student Alaina Brady finished third with an overall score of 4,235, good for a personal best. The hurdles and jumps specialist won the long jump with a 6.32m showing and took second in the 800m in 2:14.17. With Addison Berry, a graduate transfer from Wake Forest, claiming sixth with 4,105 points, Notre Dame put three pentathlon competitors north of 4,100 points for the first time in program history. Berry performed particularly well in the 60m hurdles (8.60) and the 800m (2:17.09), respectively finishing third and fourth in those events.
Meyo Invitational
Back home in South Bend, graduate student Madison Schmidt headlined the Meyo by setting a new program record in the high jump. Her 1.86m result positioned her in first place, a full tenth of a meter above the next-best finisher. The Irish also got event wins from freshman Maya Collins in the 60m (7.42), senior Sophie Novak in the collegiate mile (personal-best 4:33.29) and senior Siona Chisholm in the collegiate 3000m (personal-best 9:03.15). Freshman Isabel Allori (9:09.56, third place) and junior Caroline Lehman (9:18.46, 10th) also recorded personal records in the 3000.
Three more Irish women claimed fourth-place results, including junior Reese Sanders in the 400m (personal-best 57.07), sophomore Gabriella Zeller in the triple jump (personal-best 11.72m) and senior Kendall Burgess in the long jump (5.74m). Staying with the long jump, freshman Ashley Fisher notched a personal record and took seventh with a distance of 5.45m.
On the men’s side, Notre Dame thrived in the Ryan Shay race of the 3000m. Graduate student Vincent Mauri (7:50.33), junior Ethan Coleman (7:51.20) and junior CJ Singleton (7:52.13) went 1-2-3, all posting personal records. The Irish also put several competitors high on the leaderboard in the shot put, as freshman Luke Himes (personal-best 17.49m), graduate student Yoosang Kim (personal-best 16.64m) and sophomore Zach Petko (16.55m) went first, third and fourth, respectively.
Graduate student Dimitri Nicholson (6.78 in the 60m) and freshman Ryan Pajak (personal-best 14:06.58 in the 5000m) brought in second-place results for the Irish. Freshman Cameron Todd (14:12.02) and senior Ryan Schumacher (14:14.82) also captured personal records in the 5000. Third-place finishers included junior Daelen Ackley in the Meyo mile (3:58.18), graduate students Cole Nash in the 3000m (personal-best 8:07.14), freshman John Dearie in the 60m hurdles (personal-best 8.18) and sophomore Ben Condrin in the weight throw (17.53m). Junior Matthew Teague slotted in just behind Condrin with a fourth-place distance of 17.12m.
The remaining top-five finishes were graduate student Michael Danzi’s fourth in the 800m (personal-best 1:50.32) and junior John Oleksak’s fifth in the 400 (personal-best 48.69).
This coming weekend, the Irish will compete in the Fairgrounds Invite in Indianapolis and the Grand Valley State University Mike Lints Alumni Meet in Allendale, Michigan. Both meets will take place on Saturday, Feb. 8.
