COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – The Franklin & Marshall women's track & field team picked up more hardware on Saturday as the Diplomats placed second in the 4x800 relay with a school record time. The Diplomats saw five other individuals score in their respective events, while five more will score Sunday after advancing to the finals of their races on the track. Heading into the final day of the 2022 Centennial Conference Outdoor Championships, the Diplomats are in fifth place with 39 points, just 13 points out of the second-place spot.
The school record in the relay came from the team of Lexi Salerno, Laura Greene, Sydney Dzenutis, and Elizabeth O'Connell as they shattered their previous by nearly nine seconds with a time of 9:23.51. Trading the lead with Swarthmore throughout the race, those top two teams were over 20 seconds clear of the rest of the field before the Garnet took the race at the end by 1.22 seconds. All four of those Diplomats will receive second-team All-CC accolades for their efforts.
F&M saw most of its other scoring in the field events, led by Abby Lienhard's mark of 5.01 meters to place fourth in the long jump. During the throwing events, Aspen Mazzatta (30.62m) and Emma Steffan (30.44m) scored in the discus with sixth and seventh place finishes. Jillian Barger added seventh place points in the high jump as she cleared 1.43 meters.
The Diplomats scored on the track with Freya Lindvall taking fifth in the steeplechase following her time of 12:04.62. The majority of the track events were qualifying heats for Sunday's finals and F&M sent five individuals through to the event championships which will take place tomorrow.
That group included June Sanchez, who was first in the 800 meter heats with a time of 2:17.76. She will be joined by teammate Alysse Danyi in that same event after she was sixth in the preliminaries. Sydney Dzenutis posted the seventh-fastest 400 meter time (1:00.78) in school history during the trials to move on to Sunday. Christline Edward will represent F&M in both hurdle championships as she was second in qualifying during the 400 hurdles (1:07.72) and sixth in the 100 hurdles (17.44).
The 2022 Centennial Conference Championships will conclude on Sunday. Action gets underway at 11 a.m. with the javelin and 4x100 relays. Action runs straight through the afternoon before the awards ceremony begins at 3:40 p.m.
