Contact: Emily Adlfinger, Director of Athletic Communications, 563-588-7970

DES MOINES, Iowa (Apr. 30, 2022) – Already established as one of the top teams in NCAA Division III, the No. 2 Loras College women's track and field team continued to show its prowess among non-Division III competitors in a successful weekend at the Drake Relays, taking down two school records and posting multiple all-time marks. The Duhawks also competed at the Simpson College Kip Janvrin Invite and Grand View University Viking Classic, making for an exciting weekend of competition in Des Moines.

Getting the Duhawks started off on pace was junior Kassie Parker, making her 5,000-meter run debut this season on Thursday night at Drake's Distance Carnival. She had an excellent run in her first 5,000-meter race of the outdoor season, running 16:09.66 to take third in the field as the top Division III finisher and smashed the school record she previously held by nearly 30 seconds. She now sits second in the nation in the event and still holds the No. 1 time in the 10,000-meter run, set previously in the season when she took down the NCAA Division III national record, in addition to the 12th-fastest time in the 1,5000-meter run.

Friday morning, Elayna Bahl, Kelly Kohlhof, Stevie Lambe and Marion Edwards ran the fifth-fastest time in program history of 46.91 in the prelims on Friday to advance to Saturday's finals and finished third as the top Division III team with a time of 47.22. Lambe, Edwards, Harmony Creasy and Alyssa Pfadenhauer ran 3:47.81 in the prelims Friday to advance and finished second behind Iowa Western Community College in the finals with a time of 3:46.01, tying their season-best mark and national-leading mark.

The relays continued to shine on the Blue Oval as the 4-by-200-meter relay quartet of Bahl, Creasy, Lambe and Brooke Kruse set the school record with a tenth-place finish in the event, running 1:40.79 to break the record that had stood since 1999. Saturday morning, the distance medley relay crew of Parker, Creasy, Ellie Osterberger and Grace Alley ran the sixth-fastest time in program history, finishing fifth with a mark of 12:12.33.
Individually, Pfadenhauer added a ninth-place finish in the 400-meter dash, running 56.12 as the only Division III competitor in the field, and Bahl finished 22nd in the 400-meter hurdles, running 1:03.06.  

At Grand View, Kruse finished second in the 100-meter dash, running 12.81, and Emalee Ryder finished third with a time of 12.89. Merryl Green finished second in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:06.48 and Sam Heavlin ran 1:11.83 to finish third. In the field events, Maya Van Erp won the pole vault, clearing 2.80 meters and Alley finished second in the triple jump with a leap of 11.75 meters. De'ja Austin-Cherry added a third-place finish in the event, jumping 11.48 meters. Taylor Flaig threw 44.41 meters in the hammer throw to finish third and Van Erp added another top-three finish in the javelin, throwing 27.54 meters.

The Duhawks return home for a final tune-up ahead of the American Rivers Conference (A-R-C) Championship, hosting the Dr. Tucker Open on Friday, May 6 and honoring its senior class. Field events begin at 11 A.M. and running events commence at 2 P.M.