Some of the Western Mustangs travelled to Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana to compete at the 25th Annual Meyo Invitational while others travelled to York University to compete at the York Open.

  

Twenty athletes went to South Bend to take on some of the best in the NCAA.  The competition and facility brought out the best in many of them and they came home with 10 personal bests and five additional season's best performances. 

The meet highlights included the tremendous accomplishments of three triple jumpers and our women's 3000m runners.  All had huge personal bests.  In the women's triple jump, Caroline Ehrhardt was sitting in 1st place after qualifying for the final after three rounds with a 12.66m second round jump.  Western's Alicia Smith also qualified for the triple jump final and was in 6th place with a 12.29m jump heading into the final three rounds.

Prior to the 6th and final round of competition Ehrhardt had been bumped to 2nd place by Michigan States Tori Franklin who jumped 12.85m in the 5th round.  Smith took her 6th jump recording a lifetime best and Western record of 12.76m to move into 2nd place.  Up next was Kelcey McKinney from Ohio State.  McKinney jumped 12.82m to move both Smith and Ehrhardt to 3rd and 4th place respectively.  Up last was Ehrhardt and showing her experience and competitiveness recorded a leap of 12.94m, her lifetime best and taking back her Western record. 

Ehrhardt and Smith are now 1 and 2 in the CIS. 

In the men's triple jump, Carl Shen improved his personal best by 24cm with his 14.33m effort finishing 11th and moving him up to the #3 spot in the CIS. 

In the women's 3000m, Becky Pieterson continues her career year running an 11 second personal best with a 9:40.31 and a 12th place finish moving her to #8 on our All-Time list. Jen Bays also ran a big personal best running 9:47.45 to finish 15th overall. They are now at the #2 and #4 spots in the CIS.

Top 10 finishes included: Rookie Melissa Caruso, 5th in the 1000m (2:51.19), moving her to #4 on Western's All-time list. Ehrhardt was 8th in the long jump (5.87) and also #4 All-time.  Matt Brisson ran 8.12 to finish 9th overall in the 60m hurdles. 

Other performances that move into the CIS top 15 include; Smith, long jump (5.73m) moving to 4th; Kyle O'Neil, 3000m (8:21.02) moves to 5th and the women's 4 X 400m relay team (Brenna Thomson 58.7, Cassandra McCaig 56.6, Sarah Clancy 58.3, Jennifer Pitman 58.3) ran 3:52.12 move to the #5 spot. Full meet results can be found at http://www.und.com/sports/c-track/stats/2011-2012/meyofinalresults.html

At the York Open the Mustangs had over 50 athletes competing. The women won 8 medals and had 10 additional top eight finishes while the men won 9 medals and had 11 top eight finishes.

The men's 4 X 400m team of Elias Granillo 50.0, Brent Bates 49.5, Scott Leitch 48.9 and Miguel Wason 49.6 set a meet record of 3:18.37 to move into the number 3 spot in the CIS.  

In addition to this performance the men also had four additional performances move up in the rankings. Matt Diston vaulted 4.62m to move up to the #4 spot, rookie high jumper Chris Cauley jumped 1.97m to move to #7, Brent Bates ran 8.49 in the 60m hurdles to move him to #12 and Seb Pilon threw the weight 15.68m to move to the #14. 

The top performances that moved the women up in the rankings include Shaylynn Kowalchuk, who won bronze running almost a 2/10th pb of 8.76 in the 60m hurdles, and moved her to the #4 spot in the country. Pole vaulters Sharon Michalak and Carmen Sui vaulted 3.55m and 3.45m respectively to move to #8 and #14 as well as Morgan Hall's 5.52m bronze medal performance moves her up to #11. 

Full meet results can be found at http://www.yorku.ca/yutc/v2/2012YorkOpen/

Next weekend the Mustangs travel to Windsor for the Windsor Team Challenge as they continue to prepare for the OUA Championships the end of the month.