By Zach Payne

The Kutztown University men’s and women’s track and field teams finished off their last regular season game with a successful showing at the Paul Kaiser Invitational, hosted by Shippensburg University on Saturday, April 26. The KU women posted five event wins while two of the men, juniors Matt Devlin and Brendan Lamy, earned top-ten marks on KU’s all-time list in the 800 and shot put respectively.

Devlin’s 1:54.35 career-best time in the 800 placed him eighth on KU’s all-time list. He finished third in the event on Saturday. Golden Bears Zach Fleming and Brad Mayer qualified for PSACs as well, finishing fifth and 13th in the 800 respectively with career-best times of their own. Less than a second separated Devlin and Fleming in the hotly contested race.
Lamy etched his name among the all-time greats of KU with a career-best heave of 15.48m in the shot put. He now ranks seventh on the Golden Bears’ top-ten list.

The lone top finisher for the KU men was Sean Burns, who took first in the pole vault with a season-best clearance of 4.45m. The men did have 12 top-five finishers, though, including Quran Cason’s fourth place mark in the 200, Mychal Robinson’s third place finish in the 300 (season-best, PSAC-new) and Jack Inglis’s second place finish in the 10,000.
The KU women took the competition by storm, piling up five first-place finishes and several top-five finishes.

Kimberly Richardson ran a season-best 15.58 in the 100m hurdles to cross the finish line first. Fellow Golden Bear Torrey Hollis finished third in the event with a time of 15.69, and Christina Descano ran a 16.14 to finish 10th.

The 4×100 relay team of Hollis, VanZant, Dangerfield and Mizansky ran a season-best 48.20 to take the top spot in the event.

The Golden Bears also occupied three spots in the top-ten for both the high jump and the pole vault. In the high jump, Rachel Eshleman finished first, Rebecca Tooker placed third and Sarah Kimsey took seventh. In the pole vault, Emma Sullivan took first, Kara Funk finished sixth and Justine Ebbert earned seventh.

In addition to her 10th place finish in the 100m hurdles, Descano finished first in the long jump with a PSAC-existing mark of 5.56m.

The Golden Bears will compete in one more invitational on May 10 at the University of Virginia, but the PSAC Outdoor Championships will begin Thursday, May 1 for those who have qualified.