Sophomore Molly Gniady ran a personal best time in the 3000m steeplechase and was one of eight Foresters to score points at the University of Dubuque Good Friday Open. The team also had three runners compete in the Augustana Invitational/Meet of Champions on Thursday.
Gniady, the only Forester woman in the program's two years to run the event, finished Friday's race in 12:47.47, more than seven seconds faster than her previous best from last year's Midwest Conference Championship Meet.
Sophomore Yaneli Guajaro turned in the women's team's top performance with a runner-up time of 5:03.96 in the 1500m run. Guajardo was also fourth in the 800m run in 2:26.33.
Fellow sophomore Audrey Paglia finished sixth in the 800 and now ranks second in team history in that event with a time of 2:31.11. Another sixth-place finish was posted by junior Estafania Ramirez in the 400m run, which she ran in exactly 71 seconds.
On the men's side senior Christian Aldana matched Guajardo's runner-up placing in the 1500, which he finished in 4:09.21.
Like Gniady in the women's steeplechase, junior Dillon Rice was third in the men's race, which he competed in 10:50.60.
Freshman Mathieu Norcross added a seventh-place finish in the 400 in 55.17 seconds and senior David Carrillo earned another point by placing eighth in the 800 with a time of 2:05.31.
While the majority of the team competed at Dubuque this week, three ran the grueling 10,000m run at Augustana Thursday night. Senior Emily Stauffer was the first Forester female to compete in the event so her time of 41:14.56 is a new program record. Classmate Jorge Villanueva was third out of 24 runners in the men's race with a time of 31:37.67 and junior Philip Wilson was the next competitor to cross the finish line in 32:00.09. Villanueva fell just 2.34 seconds shy of the school record he set two weeks ago and Wilson now ranks second in team history in the event.
The next contest on the Foresters' schedule is the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's Drake Alternative Meet next Saturday.
