RESULTS

ST. PAUL, Minn. - The Bethel Royals took down two school records on Saturday along with a slew of event titles and personal bests at Hamline. "The main goal for our team is to continue to improve each week," said Head Coach Andrew Rock. "I talked with the team this week about what we want to be know for as competitors and the idea that I shared was 'compete with boldness.' We embraced this concept and saw a lot of confident, bold performers today!"

SCHOOL RECORDS

Jessica Lilland set the first school record of the day as the women competed in the morning slot at the Kent Stahly Invite. Lilland cleared 3.53m / 11'7" on her third and final attempt to break the previous record by 1 cm as well as secure 1st place in the event. That mark sits alone atop the MIAC honor roll and is currently 18th in all of Division III.

For the second week in a row, Gabe Irons broke a school record in a throwing event. After breaking the record in the hammer last week at UW-River Falls, Irons smashed previous school record in the discus by 6 feet with his heave of 170'9" / 52.04m. His toss is the best in the MIAC this year and is 4th on the Division III honor roll.

EVENT TITLES / TOP FINISHES

The women's team took home 6 event titles on Saturday morning. The 4x100m relay team of Jireh Babalola, Grace Scott, Lauren Richards, and Grace Perrenoud won with their time of 49.36. The quartet crossed the finish line over 2 seconds ahead of the next team and now own the top time in the MIAC. Scott, Babalola, and Richards earned a 1-2-3 finish in the 100m just minutes later. Scott and Babalola were awarded the same time of 12.59 seconds, with Scott getting the edge in the photo finish. Richards ran a personal best 13.04. Senior Hannah Sankey also earned a lifetime best with her victory in the 200m. Sankey ran under 26-seconds for the first time in her career with a time of 25.97 and is ranked 2nd in the MIAC. In the 100m hurdles, freshman AnnaGrace Nelson set a personal best of 15.60 to win the finals only race. That is currently the 4th fastest time in the MIAC. Grace Cole and Anna Hage earned the top two spots in the 1500m run. Cole crossed the line first in 5:06.57 and Hage ran 5:10.37. Along with Lilland's school record in the pole vault, Sadie Koelz earned a 2nd place finish with her vault of 3.20m / 10'6". Emma Roethler took 2nd place in the shot put with a toss of 12.08m / 39'7.75". Grace Perrenoud added one more 2nd palce finish for Bethel with her leap of 5.25m / 17'2.75" in the long jump. 

On the men's side, Irons was the top collegiate finisher in the hammer throw with a toss of 50.70m / 166'4". Freshman David Myers won the 110m hurdles with a terrific time of 15.87. Bethel completed the hurdle sweep as Trokon Karngar won the 400m hurdles in a time of 1:00.11. Luke Wiltshire set a personal best in the high jump with his leap of 1.95m / 6'4.75", which placed him 2nd overall. Nathan Smith showed his footspeed as he moved down from his typical distance to take 2nd place in the 400m with a time of 52.66.

DECATHLON / HEPTATHLON

The Royals also have four athletes competing at the SJU Multi. Lukas Walton, Micah Smith, and Trevor Wellman completed day 1 of the decathlon on Saturday and Sally Paul finished her first day of the heptathlon. Walton is in 3rd place (3264 points), Smith is in 8th (2898 points) and Wellman is in 11th (2727 points) as they complete competition on Sunday. Paul is currently in 6th place (2148 points) with three events remaining in the heptathlon.