The Catholic University men's track and field team sent athletes to two different events on Saturday afternoon. A group remained in Philadelphia for day two of Penn Relays while others made the trip to Elizabethtown for the Blue Jay Tune-Up ahead of next weekend's Landmark Conference Championships at the same venue.

Penn Relays – Franklin Field

The 4x100 relay of Erin Buckley, Sarah Schumacher, Megan Burns and Ellie Bixenman broke the school record by .14 seconds, running a time of 48.99 to finish sixth in the Eastern Finals. The record was broken previously this year by a similar trio that saw Felicity Giampietro run the third leg in place of Burns last weekend at the Loyola Hopkins Invitational.

Clare Marsh, Brigid Byrnes, Emily Moehringer and Zoey Brown placed fifth in the 4x400 finals with a time of 3:57.92. The team lowered their own school record set last night in the preliminary round when they became the first quartet in program history to run sub-four-minutes in the event. The Cardinals are now seconds in the Landmark Conference in this event by only 0.17 seconds. 

Blue Jay Tune-Up — Elizabethtown Track & Field Facility

Giampietro qualified for the 100-meter dash final with a first-place finish and time of 12.93 seconds in the preliminary race. She then topped the leaderboard again in the final to win the event and improved on her time to clock a 12.80.
 
Giampietro took home another victory in the 200m dash, crossing the finish line in 26.34. She was joined in the event by Sabrina Beniquez who placed eighth with a 28.20.

In the 100-meter hurdles, Edith Tomasek led the Cardinals with a fourth-place finish and a time of 16.81. Julia Gethard was right behind her in fifth with an 18.30 and Alicia Vo was the third Cardinal to make the top-10 with a ninth-place finish in 18.72.  Vo also competed the 400m hurdles, placing second with a time of 1:11.26. 

Lauren Cerda took home a first and a second-place finish in the 800m and the 1500m, respectively. The senior ran a 2:21.98 in the 800m to top her opponents by 1.11 second and clocked a 4:55.79 in the 1500m to earn second by .55 seconds.

Alexa Grassi won the 400-meter race with a time of 1:02.51, beating out her closest competition by 1.19 seconds to top the field of 12. 

Molly Maxwell earned two top-10 finishes on the day. She secured ninth in the dicus throw with a mark of 31.31m and fifth in the hammer throw with a mark of 36.98m while Anna Scolblick placed second in the high jump with a mark of 1.52m.

Also in the field, Courtney Cutting recorded a personal-best mark of 4.87m in the long jump to earn third place.

The Cardinals will return to Elizabethtown next Saturday for the Landmark Conference Championships. Steve Rahn's team goes in search of its best-ever finish at championships having been picked second, just behind defending champions Susquehanna in the annual coaches poll. The Cardinals have never finished higher than third.