The Muhlenberg track and field teams celebrated Cinco de Mayo with a carnival of qualifiers and records on the second day of the Centennial Conference Championships.

The Mules had a fantastic day in the preliminaries, setting themselves up for a big final

Senior David Chesny finished seventh in the steeplechase – his fourth straight year in the top 10 at the CC meet.

day. Of the six events for which trials were held – 100, 200, 400, 800, high hurdles, intermediate hurdles – the men had a total of nine qualifiers in all six events, while the women qualified seven in four of the events.

In the five finals, Muhlenberg brought home three silver medals and one gold. Through seven events, the Mule women were third, just 14 points behind first-place Haverford. The men also were third, within striking distance second-place Dickinson (five points) but not Haverford.

Muhlenberg’s gold medal came courtesy of the men’s 4x800-meter relay team of senior Lex Mercado, sophomores Stuart Udis and David Chorney and freshman Patrick Thornton. The quartet broke the school record by more than eight seconds and topped the previous meet record, set by Haverford in 1996, by 22 hundredths of a second. The Mules have won the 4x800 three of the last four CC meets (indoors and outdoors).

Muhlenberg did quite well in the open 800 as well, as Udis and Mercado posted the best

Senior Courtney Williams placed in the discus for the third time, finishing eighth.

and second-best qualifying times, respectively. Senior Stephen Rothwell had the fourth-fastest time in the prelims.

Freshman Jeremiah Lachaud made the finals in the 100 and 200, qualifying for ECACs in both. Freshman Brendan Kirk reached the finals in both hurdle events; in the intermediates, his time of 55.49 broke the school record for the 400 meters, although it ranks second to a converted 55.34 from 1971, when the race was run over 440 yards.

Junior Michael Karchner finished second by just 11 points in a decathlon that came down to the final event. His score of 5648 was a big improvement from his gold-medal total of 5391 last year.

Seniors Rachel Drosdick and Jacquelyn Inverso had big days for the women’s team. Drosdick placed in two events (second in the heptathlon and fifth in the long jump) and qualified for the 100-meter hurdles final. Inverso was second in the long jump and a qualifier in both the 100 and 100 hurdles.

Freshman Alex Faust broke her own school record while posting the third-fastest qualifying time in the 200. Her trials time in the 100 was the second-best in Muhlenberg history.

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