Tartans Open Outdoor Season at Washington and Lee Track and Field Carnival

(LEXINGTON, VA.) - The Carnegie Mellon University women's track and field team traveled south to Lexington, Virginia, for the Washington and Lee Track and Field Carnival hosted by Washington and Lee University at Foster Stadium on Friday and Saturday. The Tartans turned in four top showings and had multiple top-three performances in the first meet of the spring.

In the last race of the meet, junior Alex Halkias (Berlin, Conn. / Berlin) placed second in the 200-meter dash with a personal-best time of 21.97. Earlier in the day, he recorded a third place showing in the 100-meter dash with a personal-best time of 10.77. On Friday, Halkias earned a third-place finish in the long jump with a mark of 6.68 meters.

Freshman Luke Blackwell (Doylestown, Pa. / Central Bucks East) won the triple jump in his first collegiate outdoor meet with a jump of 13.65 meters. The high jump saw freshman Ethan Higgs (Evansville, Ind. / FJ Reitz), also competing in his first collegiate outdoor meet, cleared the bar at 1.91 meters, which placed him third.

Junior Len Huang (Holmdel, N.J. / Holmdel) won the discus with a personal-best throw of 44.54 meters. Classmate Bailey O'Malley (Pittsburgh, Pa. / Baldwin) recorded a second and third finish in the hammer throw and shot put, respectively. He had a career-best throw of 51.23 meters in the hammer and threw the shot put 13.91 meters.

Graduate student Grant Johnson (Wilmette, Ill. / New Trier) won the 400-meter hurdles with a personal-best time of 54.62 while fellow graduate student Michael Cai (Dumont, N.J. / Bergen County Academies) and sophomore Pranav Rajbhandari (Marietta, Ga. / Walton) swept the top two spots in the 400-meter run. Cai crossed in 50.59 and Rajbhandari in 51.06.

Next up for the Tartans is their home invitational on Friday and Saturday, March 25-26. Events kickoff on Friday afternoon at 3:30 p.m.

Top 10 performances for the meet include:

110-Meter Hurdles
7. Micah Nowlin - 16.25
9. Thomas Rich - 16.39

200-Meter Dash
10. Michael Cai - 22.79

400-Meter Hurdles
5. Andrew McGovern - 56.93
10. Micah Nowlin - 58.51

400-Meter Run
5. Clayton Long - 52.67
6. Alexander Palmer - 52.90

800-Meter Run
9. Jackson Wood - 1:58.20

5,000-Meter Run
5. Matthew Coyle - 15:19.00
6. Zachary Nowak - 15:20.21

Javelin
8. Casey Potrebic - 49.69 meters

High Jump
7. Thomas Rich - 1.76 meters

Long Jump
7. Thomas Rich - 6.48 meters

Triple Jump
8. Sebastian Sanso - 12.30 meters