Dukes Open 2015 Season at Navy Winter Invitational

Thursday, January 8

Annapolis, Md.

All Day

James Madison University

Navy Winter Invitational

1/8/2015 10:01:00 PM | Track & Field

ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The James Madison track & field team opened its 2015 Indoor season on Thursday afternoon in the Navy Winter Invitational and picked up four race titles while qualifying two runners for the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Indoor Championship meet in March.

Both ECAC qualifiers came in the 60-meter hurdles, as sophomore De'Ana Forbes (Danville, Va./George Washington) and freshman Aereale Scott (Dallas, Texas/Plano West) finished second and third, respectively, in the race. Forbes posted a time of 8.74 seconds to break her previous personal best of 8.75 seconds in the event, which placed second in program history in the 60-meter hurdles. Scott, who was competing in her first collegiate race, finished in 8.83 seconds. The mark puts her in sixth place on the program's all-time list in the event.

In her other race at the meet, Forbes finished third in the 200-meter dash with a time of 25.29 seconds.

In the 5,000-meter run, senior Rachel Hagen (Sterling, Va./Potomac Falls) set a personal best with a finish of 18:11.57. Overall, she finished fifth in the race.

Competing in the indoor 3,000-meter run for the first time in her career, sophomore Tessa Mundell (Mohnton, Pa./Governor Mifflin) ran away from the pack to win the race. With a time of 10:08.15, Mundell finished more than 22 seconds in front of the second place finisher, as Delaware's Rebecca Gessler finished in 10:30.99.

In the 1,000-meter run, sophomore Carol Strock (Mechanicsburg, Pa./Cumberland Valley) took the top spot with a time of 2:58.82 while sophomore Kennedy King (Hampton, Va./Phoebus) won the long jump competition with a jump of 5.47 meters to round out the individual titles for the Dukes.

The final event of the day, the distance medley relay, saw JMU's freshman quad of Haley Mahn (Pennington, N.J./Hopewell Valley), Tyrah Burrow (Hampton, Va./Hampton), Nicole Goff (Yorktown, Va./Grafton) and Erica Gray (Yardley, Pa./Pennsbury) come from the back of the pack to win the event with a time of 12.22.02.

Madison returns to action next Friday, Jan. 16, with meets at the Kentucky Invitational in Lexington and the Liberty Open in Lynchburg, Virginia. Both meets are two-day affairs, finishing on Saturday, Jan. 17.