Carleton Track & Field (Photo: Miles Ryan Rowat, Mundo Sports Images)
Canton, NY - After a hard Fall of pre-season training the Carleton Ravens Track and Field Team opened its season with a trip just south of the border for the Saints Holiday Relays at St Lawrence University. Although the season is only just beginning, things are looking good.
Headlining the Ravens athletes were the shot putters. Reigning Canadian U20 men’s shot put champion sophomore Connor Fraser unleashed a big personal best with the heavier senior implement on his first throw to win the competition and set a new Ravens record of 14.83m. This currently ranks Connor 4th in U SPORTS and is a promising sign for staying in the highly competitive U SPORTS top 12 and a spot at the national championships.
Ravens graduate student Brianna Asiamah overcame injury problems that hampered her fall training to set a new Ravens women’s shot put record with her silver medal heave of 12.66m. The mark set a new indoor personal best for Brianna and is 13 cm further than the performance that qualified her for the U SPORTS championship last season. Right now Brianna is ranked third in U SPORTS.
Other notable performances came on the track from Laura Cross, who pulled off an impressive 300m and 600m double gold with performances just fractionally slower than her RSEQ championships time last year. While both events will heat up considerably before the U SPORTS Championships in March, Laura is now ranked 8th and 11th in the two events.
The women’s 60m saw two Ravens crack into what may have been one of the hottest U SPORTS finals this year. Ella-Grace Gilbert dropped a PB of 8.12 to finish 4th and move to 3rd all-time on the Ravens' performance chart. Later in the afternoon, she would complete her first triple jump competition by making the event final and taking a good sniff at a Carleton event record that will be rewritten this year. Rose Basu finished the 60m just behind Ella in 5th with a personal best time of 8.16, fast enough to put this freshman into the 5th all-time Ravens slot.
Other top-eight finishes at the meet included Olajiire Fowler and Kaylyne Kabongo, who finished 6th and 8th, respectively, in the 300m. Despite nagging injury woes Michael Pinnock gutted out an 8th-place finish in the 300m. On the infield, Kaiden Peldjak threw the thirty-five-pound weight for an eighth-place finish.
With this progress check completed the team is back into competition prep mode. The first meet in the new year is at the University of Sherbrooke on January 13th.
