Sophomore smashes 800-meter dash time

Sophomore Hannah Russell set a new school record and personal best time in the 800-meter dash with a time of 2:10.95 to pace the Musketeers women’s track and field team at the Meyo Invitational last weekend.

The latest result bested her record-setting run on Jan. 25 at the Can-Am Invitational by nearly two seconds.

“She pulled away from the field and dominated her heat,” head coach Ryan Orner told goxavier.com. “Hannah has made tremendous progress over the past season, but I think she even shocked herself today.”

Orner also mentioned her focus will be on her winning a Big East Championship in the near future.

Both the men’s and women’s teams competed in two events last weekend. In addition to the Meyo Invitational, the Musketeers ran at the Cedarville Collegiate Indoor Invitational, where the women’s team placed sixth and the men’s team placed 12th out of 17 total teams.

In Cedarville, Jordan Perez, Noah Douthit and Andrew Dietrich were the top performers on the men’s side. Perez, a sophomore, placed second overall in the 5,000-meter run with a 15:48.83. Douthit, just a freshman, finished in third place in the same event with a 15:50.85 and Dietrich, a junior, ran to a sixth-place finish the 800-meter run at 2:00.45.

On the women’s side, juniors Anna Ramsey and Sydney Kapral led the way with second and third place finishes in the 800-meter race with times of 2:20.52 seconds and 2:21.54 seconds.

Senior Bernadette Prichard received a top 5 finish in the 5,000-meter event running a time of 19:57.15 seconds.

At the Meyo Invitational, the women’s team secured a pair of top-5 finishers. Junior Anna Kostarellis placed fourth in the 3,000-meter with a championship heat time of 9:27.34 alongside the fifth-place finish from Russell in the 800-meter run.

Sophomore Courtney Klatt set a school record in the one-mile run with a time of 4:57.33.

Xavier will finalize its indoor season at the Music City Invitational this weekend in Nashville, Tenn., before the Big East Indoor Championships on March 1-2 in Geneva, Ohio.