GETTYSBURG, Pa. – The Gettysburg College men's and women's track and field teams hit the road for the 2022 Centennial Conference Indoor Championship hosted at Ursinus College on Feb. 26-27.
2022 CC Indoor Track and Field Championship
Heading to Collegeville
Ursinus College will host the 2022 CC Indoor Track and Field Championship inside The Floy Lewis Bakes Center. The Bears are hosting the event for the 11th time and first time since 2018. All fans must be masked at all times inside the athletics center.
Championship History
Johns Hopkins has dominated the meet over the last decade and has won eight-straight titles on the men's side and 10-straight on the women's side. Haverford leads all men's programs with 17 conference titles with the last coming in 2012. After the Blue Jays, Dickinson College and Haverford College rank second and third with seven and six team championships, respectively. Gettysburg won the first two women's indoor team championships in 1994 and 1995.
Bullets Breakdown
Gettysburg heads to the indoor championship for the first time since 2020. The 2020 CC Championship was the last track meet of the season for the Bullets with the remainder of the outdoor season cancelled due to the pandemic. Track and field returned in 2021 with a limited outdoor schedule beginning in April.
The Gettysburg men are led by a handful of medal contenders. Senior
Will Hopkins (Raleigh, N.C./Needham B. Broughton) generated some early-season buzz by breaking the school record in the 500 meters with 1:10.96 at the Little Dip Invitational on Jan. 29. He enters the weekend with the fifth-fastest time in the conference in the 800 meters at 2:00.08.
In the sprint events, freshman
Aidan Kiernan (Pelham Manor, N.Y./Pelham Memorial) and junior
Eric Liedtka (Hamilton, N.J./Notre Dame) will vie for top showings. Kiernan rates sixth in the conference in the 60-meter dash at 7.24 seconds, which also sits tied for sixth in program history. The first-year also ranks 15th in the conference in the 200 meters at 24.06. Liedtka ranks among the program's top five in the 60-meter hurdles and has his eye on breaking that elusive nine-second barrier. The junior ranks sixth in the conference at 9.01.
Junior
Caden Giordano (Bethlehem, Pa./Bethlehem) leads the field squad with top-10 distances in the long jump and triple jump this season. Giordano ranks 10th in the conference in both events, clearing 20 feet, 0.25 inches in the long jump and 40 feet, 10.25 inches in the triple jump. His PR in the triple came in the team's last meet at Susquehanna University on Feb. 12 and it ranks ninth in program history. Sophomore
Teo Zemser (Hewitt, N.J./West Milford) set an early season standard in the pole vault by clearing 13 feet, 5.75 inches at the season-opening F&M Invitational back in December. He is eighth in program history and enters this weekend's championship event second in the conference.
For the Gettysburg women, freshman
Lauren DiOttavio (Romansville, Pa./Downingtown West Campus) has posted top-10 performances in program history in both the 60-meter dash (2nd, 8.18) and the 200-meter dash (T-8th, 27.48). She enters the weekend seventh and ninth, respectively, in the conference. Senior
Kathrin O'Brien (Lynchburg, Va./Virginia Episcopal School) is the team's top distance runner and ranks eighth in the conference in the 5K with a time of 19:14.06. O'Brien was the bronze medalist in the 10K at last year's CC Outdoor Championship.
The Bullets are particularly deep in the field events led by seniors
Anna Pienkos (North Haven, Conn./Sacred Heart Academy),
Jess Alessi (Schoharie, N.Y./Ichabod Crane), and
Caitlin Yap (Wayne, N.J./Morris Catholic). Pienkos is a former bronze medalist in the outdoor high jump and heads into the indoor event ranked among the top 10 in the conference alongside sophomore
Alexa Schauder (Cedar Knolls, N.J./Whippany Park). The pair have each cleared 4 feet, 7 inches and are tied for eighth in the conference. Alessi ranks third in program history in the weight throw with a toss of 44 feet at the Frank Colden Invitational on Feb. 5. She heads into the championship fourth in the conference.
Yap and Schauder lead a strong contingent of pole vaulters for the Bullets. Schauder is tied for fourth in program history with a vault of 9 feet, 6.25 inches, while Yap, junior
Cassidy Callahan (Fitchburg, Mass./Oakmont Regional), freshman
Olivia Taylor (Cortlandt Manor, N.Y./Hendrick Hudson) sit seventh in program history with vaults of 9 feet, 0.25 inches. Those four marks rank among the top 12 in the conference.
Sophomore
Giovanna Komst (Londonderry, N.H./Londonderry) sits just outside the top 10 in the conference in shot put. The sophomore ended her season with a career-long toss of 35 feet, 6.75 inches at the Susquehanna Invite, which sits 11th in the CC.
"We have the potential to run, jump, and throw some of our best marks yet this season," said Head Coach
Bryson Hartzler. "Hopefully that puts us in the mix for some great top-10 performances and a couple of medals. Each meet we've had this season has given us the opportunity to iron out any issues there might be and forge the confidence to line up at the start line with an 'I've got this' mentality."
