More Records Fall At Bison Open; Athletes Shine At Ursinus, Too
Sophomore Grace Kaste broke a 24-year old school record at Bucknell.

Lewisburg, PA/Collegeville, PA — It was yet another record-setting week for the Messiah track and field program, as the Falcons sent limited squads to this weekend’s Bucknell University Bison Open and Wednesday’s Ursinus College Pentathlon.

At the former, Messiah was led by a record-crushing performance from its distance medley relay team, as junior Cory Kaufman, sophomore Jesse Weidemann, senior Pat Roach and freshman Tyler Newhook captured first place at the NCAA Division I event in a time of 10:19.28. Kaufman opened the event with the 1,200-meter leg, and was followed by strong performances from Weidemann in the 400 and Roach in the 800. Newhook closed with another outstanding effort in the 1,600-meter anchor, helping Messiah dismantle the old school record of 10:33.50 by 14.22 seconds.

That time was seven seconds better than Saturday’s second-place effort from NCAA Divison I St. Francis University, which posted a 10:26.13 mark.

And while the Falcons did not bring enough athletes to compete for a team score at the Bison Invitational, several other individual performances shone. Sophomore Grace Kaste broke the school record in the 800-meter run, posting a time of 2:20.82 — bettering the 2:22.5 clip of Cecelia Gebhart set back in 1985.

Gebhart’s mark was the longest-standing school record in an active event. Kaste’s time Saturday was good enough for fourth place overall.

Junior Kristen Bates broke her own school record in the 60-meter hurdles as well over the weekend, running an NCAA automatic qualifying time of :08.83 to place second in the event overall. That clip replaced Bates’ previous school-mark of :08.95 set two weeks ago at the University of Maryland Terrapin Invitational — the first time a Messiah athlete had ever ran the 60-meter hurdles in school history.

The Falcons received other noteworthy performances from freshman Drew Melnick and sophomore Derek Forney in the 400-meter run over the weekend, as the tandem ran to :54.14 and :54.18 times, respectively. Both were MAC qualifying times. Freshman Brian Bilbrough posted a :55.10 in the 400 and sophomore Chris Boyd ran a :55.97. Senior Jason Brown also finished with a :07.66 in the 60-meter dash.

Brown was one of four athletes Messiah took to Wednesday’s Ursinus Pentathlon, as junior Brianna Eshelman, sophomore Kaitlyn Valis and sophomore Emily Olson competed for the women’s squad. Brown took sixth overall with a score of 2,624 points. A season-best effort in the high jump helped him to a personal-best in the multi-event. The men’s pentathlon consists of the 55-meter hurdles, the long jump, the shot put, the high jump and the 1,000-meter run.

Eshelman Brianna Eshelman excelled in her first ever multi-event, leading the women's team with 2476 points — good for seventh place overall. Valis followed with 2388 points and Olson with 2097. The women's pent consists of the 55-meter high hurdles, the high jump, the shot put, the long jump and the 800-meter run. Both Eshelman and Valis excelled in the hurdles, while a strong long jump from Eshelman helped her succeed in her first collegiate taste of the multi-event.

This season will mark the first time that the men’s and women’s pentathlon will be included in the MAC Conference Championships.

Messiah will return to the track next weekend, as the program gears up for the annual New Balance Collegiate meet, held at the Amory in New York City. Messiah will be looking to improve on its school-record performance in the distance medley relay (that team is slated to compete Friday), while Bates is slated to run the hurdles Friday and the triple jump Saturday. Both Roach and Kaste are scheduled to run the open 800-meters Saturday as well.

Complete details of the New Balance Collegiate is available at the official website of the Armory Track.