Utah Distance Medley Relay Crowned Champion at Drake Relays

4/30/2016 12:00 AM | Track & Field

April 30, 2016

DES MOINES, Iowa- The University of Utah distance medley relay team clocked the fastest time in the country to set the school-record at Utah to win its second ever championship in the 107 year history of the Drake Relays.

"The big news from today is that we are the champs in the distance medley relay," Utah head coach Kyle Kepler said excitedly. "We ran the fastest time in the country for any outdoor distance medley relay. It was an awesome quartet. I can't say how excited we are about getting the win on the last relay of the meet. It was definitely one of the best relays we ever had in the 11 years we have been coming to this meet."

"Every kid we brought here was really focused," Kepler continued. "Despite the weather, they really brought a great focus and a great effort to this meet all the way around. I am excited to head to our conference meet here in a couple of weeks and we'll see if we can continue to use this momentum to get us going into the postseason."

The distance medley relay team caught the spotlight with its school-record time of 11:12.10. Senior leader Andrea Chavez kicked off the race, completing the first leg (1200m) in 3:30. Alissa Atisme followed with a solid performance in the 400-meter leg as she kept the Utes in the front of the pack with a time of 53 seconds. Senior Ali Eisenbeiss ran the third leg (800m) with a split of 2:08 and placed Utah securely in second place. In the final leg of the event, Sarah Feeny closed the gap between Utah and Baylor. Feeny ran a 1600-meter split of 4:38 and was able to catch Baylor's Chelsea Orr in the last 300-meters of the race to catapult Utah into first place.

The Utes also competed in the sprint medley relay. The relay comprised of Rhianna Williams, Mesa Weidle, Caitie Faust and Christine Van Brocklin recorded a time of 4:07.61 to earn fourth in their heat and 13th overall.

Utah finished fourth in the HyVee Cup standings. The HyVee Cup is the award that goes to the team with the best team score in the 4x100, 4x200, 4x400, 4x800, sprint medley and distance medley.

On Friday evening, several Utah distance runners competed at the OSU High Performance in Corvallis, Ore.

The 5,000 featured three Utes competing. Leading the charge for Utah was senior Kate Stringfellow. Stringfellow recorded a time of 17:12.61 to finish eighth overall. Shaylen Crook was the next Ute to finish in 12th, with a time of 17:23.78. Jocelyn Todd earned 15th in 17:41.22.

Dana Snell represented Utah in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Snell recorded a time of 11:13.73 to claim ninth overall.

"Their races were solid," Kepler said. "They had to deal with some windy weather that created some challenges. Overall, it was good to get those guys back racing again. They hadn't raced for a couple of weeks and needed to find out where they were and I thought they gave good efforts."

The Utes continue their season on May 6 at the Pac-12 Championships in Seattle, Wash.

-UU-