Just like the 2017 indoor season, the nationally-ranked No. 4 Ithaca College women's track & field team finished as the national runners-up at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships on Saturday at the SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio. Ithaca totaled 37 total team points to only trail Washington University of St. Louis in the team standings. The second place finish is the best in outdoor school history, as the previous best team finish was sixth in 2011.
The Bombers went into Saturday's final day of competition in first place with 30 points with two events to go. Wash U had not accumulated any points prior to Saturday, but would compete in seven finals events on the day with 10 athletes and a relay team.
Ithaca earned one point towards its team total as junior Amber Edwards finish eighth in the 100-meter hurdles with a personal-best time of 14.45 seconds. Edwards, who ran alone in the event, made the most of her opportunity. She was given a fair chance to run in the final after it was determined that her preliminary race was impeded by another runner on Friday, and she shaved .07 seconds off her previous top time to vault into the field's top eight, which resulted in her first career All-America honor.
Heading into the 5,000-meter race, in which junior Taryn Cordani was competing, Ithaca fell back to third in the team standings. Carthage passed the Bombers with 33 points, but Cordani moved IC back into the runner-up spot with a third place finish in 16:46.68, which equated to six points.
In that race, Cordani raced out with the lead pack right from the starting gun. Cordani, along with three other runners, Amy Regan of Stevens Institute of Technology, Maya Weigel of Pomona-Pitzer and Maryann Gong of MIT, separated themselves from the rest of the field.
By the 4:50 mark, Cordani, Regan and Weigel entered a three-person race, while Gong faded. With five laps to go (10-minute mark), Cordani remained steady in third place, but then made her move to the front at 13:10. She was quickly passed by Weigel just 1:05 later, and then Regan moved ahead shortly after that. From there, Weigel proved to be the top runner in the 5K and pulled away from everyone to win the title, and Cordani would finish in third with a time of 16:46.68 for her second All-American performance at the championships and fifth overall this season (cross country and indoor).
Weigel won in 16:34.08, while Regan was second in 16:41.74.
On Thursday, Ithaca jumped out with 28 points as Cordani and senior Brandy Smith won national titles in the 10,000-meter run and discus, while senior Katherine Pitman was the runner-up in the pole vault. Junior Denise Ibarra and freshman Beth Cripps also competed on Thursday in the steeplechase and pole vault, but neither factored into the team scoring.
On Friday, Smith secured her seventh all-time All-America accolade as she finished seventh in the shot put with a mark of 14.05 meters. Edwards ran in the 100-hurdle prelims later on in the day.
Here is a full recap of Friday's events.