With the weather patterns hopefully beginning to turn towards spring, the athletic teams at Geneva College are beginning to turn heads. While the number of student-athletes qualifying for the NCCAA national track and field meet continues to grow, the baseball and softball teams are beginning their stretches through the Presidents’ Athletic Conference with some very positive early returns.
Geneva’s track and field team joined several PAC schools at the Washington & Jefferson College Invitational on Saturday. Geneva’s women finished 13th and the men came in 14th but the individual performances of the day are what stole the show. In women’s action, Sarah Davis joined the ever growing number of NCCAA national qualifiers with a fifth place performance in the 10K race. Other top ten performances on the women’s side included Mary Keen (2nd – Discus), Kayla Jackson (8th – Shot put), Julia Urbanski (2nd – 1500 meter; 7th – 800 meter) and Alayna Merkle (8th – 5K).
Geneva’s men were equally impressive in the throwing and distance competitions with a total of five top ten finishes. Nate Mansor trimmed 24 seconds off his personal best time while finishing 8th in the steeplechase. Meanwhile Chuck Walters came in 6th in the 10K event. Dan Dillman turned in a pair of top tens in the discus and shot put while Nick Edinger again made a major splash by winning the 10K race and setting a new meet record with a time of 33:10.08.
Weather continues to play havoc with the baseball and softball schedules as both Geneva teams managed just one doubleheader on the week. In baseball on Saturday, the Golden Tornadoes benefited from an outstanding pitching performance from Mike Trn in a 4-3 victory over Thiel in the game one of the doubleheader. Trn tossed a complete game five-hitter in improving his personal record to 4-1 on the season. Justin McGurgan and Jeremy Herzog each had a pair of hits in the victory. Thiel turned the tables in game two with a 9-3 decision over the Golden Tornadoes leaving them 12-8 on the season. Geneva will look to have a busy week with five games against PAC competition in the next five days.
The Geneva softball team only managed to complete two games this week but it turned out to be two very impressive games. The Golden Tornadoes swept a doubleheader from a Bethany College team that won 36 games a year ago and they did it in very impressive fashion. Geneva took game one 8-2 before cruising to an 11-1 decision in the night cap. Julie DiLonardo improved to 8-4 on the season with a complete victory in game one while Ariel Lilly moved to 4-2 with an equally impressive performance in game two. The story of the day, however, was Geneva’s 20 hit attack in the twin bill. Leah Prisuta led the attack with five hits, five runs and four stolen bases in the doubleheader. Adriane Blake clubbed a home run in each game and Leanne Abate added a two run shot in game one. Geneva sits at 12-6 on the season and will prepare for a couple PAC doubleheaders at the end of the week.
Following is the athletic schedule for the upcoming week:
| Mon., April 4 | Baseball vs Thiel 4 p.m. |
| Wed., April 6 | Baseball vs W&J 4 p.m. |
| Thurs., April 7 | Softball at Chatham (2) 3:30 p.m. |
| Fri., April 8 | Baseball vs Westminster 4 p.m. |
| Sat., April 9 | Track at Neville Island 9 a.m. |
| Baseball at Westminster (2) 1 p.m. | |
| Softball at Westminster (2) 1 p.m. |
Geneva College was selected to join the Undergraduate Microbial Genome Annotation Program, an initiative of the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI).
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