UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Four Nittany Lions competed in events outside of the regularly-scheduled Bison Outdoor Classic for Penn State, with two of the four setting school records in their respective events. Florence Caron (5K at Bryan Clay Invite) and Hayley Kitching (800m at Australian Athletics Championships) set Penn State top marks in competition this weekend.
Kitching began with her preliminary outing at the Australian Athletics Championships on Thursday night. She clocked a 2:03.13 in the 800-meter prelims to advance to Sunday morning's championship final. In the final, the Coffs Harbour native finished fifth overall with a Penn State school record 2:00.70 time. She is the only Nittany Lion woman ever to break 2:01 in the 800-meters.
Cheickna Traore, no stranger to Penn State's leaderboards himself, clocked a 20.25 in the 200-meters at Florida's Tom Jones Invite on Friday evening to claim second overall in a competitive field of collegiate runners. His mark was just 0.02 seconds off his own 20.23 school record time.
In the wee hours of the morning of April 13 at the Bryan Clay Invite, Caron clocked a 15:32.22 5K to break Penn State's 46-year old school record by less than a second. Her mark currently stands at No. 8 in Division I this season.
Penn State's final competitor at the Bryan Clay Invite, Evan Dorenkamp, crossed the line in the 1500-meters in a season-best 3:40.59, a mark good for No. 21 in Division I in 2024.
UP NEXT
Penn State is set to conclude competition at the Bison Outdoor Classic on Sunday, April 14. Next weekend, the Nittany Lions will travel to Charlottesville, Va. for the Virginia Classic on April 19-20.
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