This past weekend on December 8 and 9, Men’s and Women’s Track and Field competed in the two-day Fast Times Before Finals Multi Meet, hosted by Lehigh University at the Rauch Fieldhouse.
Sophomore Brandon Kiefer finished second in the heptathlon out of 10 competitors, totaling 4,385 points. Kiefer set a new personal record by 15 points, topping his previous collegiate best of 4,370 points set at last year’s Middle Atlantic Conference (MAC) Indoor Championships.
Kiefer also set new collegiate bests in the 60-meter dash, the 60-meter hurdles, and the pole vault. In the 60, Kiefer posted the top time, finishing the race in 7.22 seconds. He then cleared 6.04 meters in the long jump and 10.92 meters in the shot put to rank first through the first half of the meet, 27 points ahead of his closest competitor.
Kiefer set new personal records in two of the final three events, reaching 1.70 meters in the high jump, finishing the 60-meter hurdles in 9.10 seconds and clearing 3.97 meters in the pole vault. Kiefer was just one of two competitors to clear 3.9 meters in the final event of the meet.
Meanwhile, senior Laura Mathews competed in her first-ever collegiate decathlon and took third out of nine competitors with 2,996 points. Mathews’ total is the third-highest total in program history.
Mathews began her first pentathlon meet with the 60-meter hurdles, running it in 8.80 seconds which was the fastest time among the competitors. She was nearly three-tenths-of-a-second ahead of her closest competitor. She then posted a mark of 1.36 meters in the high jump and a distance of 9.06 meters to sit in second through three events.
Mathews narrowly missed the top mark in the long jump, clearing 5.20 meters on her final attempt, tying Monmouth’s Anne Rutledge and just three-tenths-of-a-meter behind Lehigh’s Emma Sanford. Mathews improved her long jump by 0.16 meters from her initial collegiate foray in the event one week ago. In the final event, Mathews finished the 800-meter run with a time of 2:47.31 to finish less than 200 points out of second place.
The Ducks return to competition after the winter break in the new year on Saturday, January 20, for the Alvernia University Winter Invite.
