The Aurora University men's and women's track teams wrapped up their regular seasons at nearby North Central's Gregory Invitational on Friday evening. They broke three school records and two conference records.
 

Sophomore Kalmon Stokes beat three of the nation's top twenty and won the meet, but may not have quite run fast enough to qualify for nationals in the 400 meter hurdles. In an astonishing performance (all alone in the second heat!), Stokes ran a new school record of 53.59 seconds. That ranks twenty-third in Division III; the top twenty athletes who declare for their event qualify for nationals. The two most common reasons that would stop and athlete from declaring and allow Stokes into the Nationals are injuries and preferring to focus on another event, though other, stranger reasons have cropped up over the years. Stokes will find out his fate around 8:00 am Central time on Sunday morning.

In the 1,500 meter run, freshman Matt Meyers missed his own school record by a mere 0.11 seconds, running 4:00.34 for fourteenth place. He'll have to settle for besting national qualifiers Will Cross of Elmhurst and Steven Haagsma of Calvin.

Another AU athlete chased their own school record in the 1,500 meter run: Emily Paull slashed two and a half seconds from her previous school standard, running 4:40.85 for sixth place and new school and conference records. Paull went with a ridiculously fast pace set by Karen Lesiewicz of Notre Dame, 69 seconds at 400 meters, and hung on for a painful final third of the race. Paull will continue her season in the steeplechase at next week's NCAA championships at Ohio Wesleyan.

The women's 4x100 meter relay of Lisa Rodriguez, Crystal Abernathy, Destinie Willis, and Loretta Johnson had perhaps their smoothest baton passes of the spring, and won the meet. But cool temperatures (temps below 70 degrees are generally not conducive to fast times in events shorter than 400 meters) prevented the quartet from improving their time. They finish their spring ranked twenty-second in Division III, just 0.14 seconds outside of the top sixteen schools that qualify for nationals.

The sting of not making nationals in the 4x100 was eased slightly by an epic performance in the 4x400 at the end of the meet. All spring, the vicissitudes of track meets prevented the long relay from performing to its potential. One week, every athlete would be primed to go and the weather would be horrible; the next, every athlete would only be in their first event of the day but one would get injured; the next, every athlete would be healthy but two would be too tired from doubling in other events. On Friday night. junior Loretta Johnson took the unusual step of scratching from the open 400, forgoing a slim chance of qualifying for nationals in the event. That sent a sharp message to her relay mates. Abernathy, Rodriguez, and Paull (the latter two barely surviving a harrowing baton pass from the 5-8 Rodriguez to the 5-1 Paull) all had their best relay split of the season, with all three between 58.3 and 58.7 seconds. Johnson closed out with the best anchor leg of her career in 57.0 seconds. Their time of 3:53.60 seconds smashes their own conference and school record by more than five seconds and is the twenty-seventh best in the country.

The Spartan women finish the spring as one of only twelve schools to have both 4x100 and 4x400 relays rank in the top thirty nationally. Out of those twelve schools, Aurora is the only one with more than two freshmen on their relays. Especially with the return of a healthy Liz Canaday, 2015 looks to be a spectacular year for the Spartan sprinters.