St. John’s Women’s Track and Field had a productive week coming away with a couple of school records and a second-place finish at the 2017 Outdoor Metropolitan Championships.
The Hurricane Alumni Invitational was held in Coral Gables, Florida. There, Adriana Wright set a school-record in the 100-meter-hurdle. Wright ran alongside Destiny Davis, Denesha Ransome, and Christine Oguledo in the 4×100-meter to tie a St. John’s track record.
Nyla Woods also had a good performance is Florida, she earned the individual title in the hammer throw. Woods earned the 38th best toss in the East Division of NCAA Division 1 track.
Wright broke a school record in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 13.62 seconds, beating of Shell Rice’s 1985 record which stood at 13.87, according to redstormsports.com.
The relay team, consisting of Wright, Davis, Ransome and Oguledo, also challenged a school record. The team came away with a time of 45.71 in the 4×100-meter relay. They tied a 2013 school record.
The rest of the team was competing at the Rider Invitational in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. The squad finished ninth and ended up with 23 team points.
“We put up some very impressive performances in at Miami with Nyla Woods in the hammer, Adriana in the hurdles, and our 4×100 team,” said Head Coach Jim Hurt. “At Rider our younger student-athletes got some great experience that they will need at next week’s Metropolitan Championships. Both meets have us well prepared for it.”
St. John’s had a strong showing in the Metropolitan Championship. They earned 162 team points, finishing just behind Rutgers who earned 190. St. John’s finished the championship with six scoring efforts including 13 podium finishes after having competed in 22 total events.
The team was led by strong performances by Woods, Julia Schwan, Wright and Jasmine Burkett.
Woods earned her third hammer throw title in a row to get a strong start to the outdoor season.
Schwan won the individual championship in the heptathlon. The heptathlon is a seven-part event where the athletes are scored in each individual event, according to redstormsports.com.
Wright won the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 13.65. She was .03 seconds’ shy of her record breaking time from the Hurricane Alumni Invitational.
Burkett came away with a win in the 400-meter hurdles earning herself a time of 1:01.48.
“We had a very good meet in all event areas but Rutgers managed to get ahead of us to win the title,” said Head Coach Hurt. “Our multi-event student-athletes, led by Julia Schwan’s win were awesome and Adriana and Nyla continue to dominate the 100-meter hurdles and hammer throw. Jasmine Burkett scored in the 400-meter dash and then came back to win the 400-meter hurdles. So our team went to the well both days, which I am very proud of. We are looking forward to the Georgia Tech and Stony Brook meets next week.”
St. John’s will be splitting up the squad once again, sending some to Georgia Tech on April 21-22 and others to the Wolfie Invite at Stony Brook on April 22.
