THE EVENT
SMU at Drake Relays
April 23-24, 2004

at Drake
Relays
THE RESULTS
Complete Drake Relay
results / Click here


Distance medley, sprint medley shatter records at Drake Relays

DES MOINES, Iowa — All season long, Ellen Koranda (Blue Earth, Minn.) has been breaking — then rebreaking — Saint Mary's University women's track and field records.

In fact, every time the SMU sophomore has stepped on the track, a school record has fallen.

At the Drake Relays Frida, Koranda — with a little help from her friends — was at it again.

Friday, Koranda teamed withTera Bollig (Cambridge, Minn.), Autumn Valk (Appleton, Wis.) and Maria Roche (New Prague, Minn.) to break yet another school record, this time in the distance medley relay at the Drake Relays.

No, scratch that, Koranda & Co. didn't break the school mark — they obliterated it.

The foursome posted a time of 12:26.52 — nearly of full minute faster than the previous SMU school record — en route to a 13th-place showing in the 18-team field.

"The ladies ran a great race," said SMU coach Kirk Nauman. "To break the school record by nearly a minute is just amazing. And to think that it's a team made up of two freshmen (Bollig and Roche), and two sophomores (Koranda and Valk) competing against mostly juniors and seniors, placing 13th was a pretty impressive accomplishment."

And Saturday, it was another relay race — and another dominating performance — as Valk, Roche and Koranda and Megan Moran (Burlington, Wis.) got together to break the seven-year-old school record in the sprint medley, as the foursome breezed to a time of 4:16.08, more than 30 seconds faster than the previous school mark, en route to a 15th-place finish in the 21-team field.