Smoking hot 5,000 at Bucknell Saturday with Northern Burlington’s Liliah Gordon, Atlantic City’s Maddie Dischert and Cherokee’s Kerry O’Day all running PRs and Dischert breaking the Rider school record.
All three run sub-16:40 at the Bison Outdoor Classic at Christy Matthewson Stadium in Lewisburg, Pa.
The trio of South Jersey alums ran together through 3,000 meters before separating a bit over the last 2K.
Gordon, a red-shirt freshman at Penn State, ran 16:31.18 and placed 9th out of 92 runners. Her previous PR was 16:38.54 this past June at the USATF Under-20 Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.
That’s the fastest time by a Northern Burlington graduate since Laura Mason ran 16:03.71 at the 1994 Penn Relays. Although Gordon is listed as racing unattached, she is listed on the Big Ten Conference performance list on TFRRS and is the 5th-fastest freshman in the conference.
Dischert, a junior, finished just behind Gordon, placing 11th in 16:34.70. She broke the Rider record of 16:38.31 set at the same meet in Lewisburg last year by Grace Medei from Notre Dame Green Pond High in Bethlehem.
Dischert’s previous PR over 5,000 meters was 16:59.86 indoors at Boston University in January. Her time Saturday ranks No. 2 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, behind only Alex Schultz of Iona, who ran 16:15.27 in Raleigh last month.
Although Dischert is a junior for cross country and indoors, this is her first season of college outdoor track, and this was her first outdoor 5,000, and she never ran a track 5,000 in high school. So her first-ever outdoor 5K on the track and she snags the school record.
O’Day, a Bucknell sophomore, made it three South Jersey alums across the line in 12 seconds with a 16:43.08 for 15th place.
Her previous PR was a 16:55.53 at this meet last year. Teammate Kailey Granger ran 16:40.86 in the same race, and those are the fastest times by Bucknell women in five years, since Ashlyn Ramos ran 16:22.42 at the 2022 Patriot League Championships in Annapolis, Md.
O’Day is now No. 6 on the all-time Bucknell list and No. 7 this year in the Patriot League.
La Salle’s Helene Usher from Haddonfield ran 16:42.30 indoors in Boston so that’s four South Jersey college runners under 16:45 so far this spring. Hopefully, we see them all together at Penn.
Clearview’s Abby Waddington, a junior at Boston College, is knocking on the door of 17 minutes with a 17:01.90 in Raleigh two weeks ago. She ran 16:54.41 in Boston last February.
I’m going to try to put together an all-time South Jersey sub-17 list later today. That should be fun!
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 