NEW YORK, NY – Kicking off their final meet before NCAA qualifiers are announced, the University of Rochester women's track & field team saw Nora Chen and URochester's 4x400-meter relay improve their times on the first day of the All-Atlantic Region Indoor Track & Field Championships at The Armory.
 
Chen not only improved her time, but also broke the school record in the 60-meter hurdles, qualifying for Saturday's final with a sixth-place finish and an 8.73-second time, a new personal-best. Chen's time bested the previous record of 8.80 seconds, set by Kylee Bartlett in 2019, and currently ranks 14th in the event on the NCAA Division III Indoor Qualifying List.
 
Last on in the meet, Chen ran the final leg of Rochester's 4x400-meter relay, combining with Eva Ciuffetelli, Raquella Casserino and Lauren Murphy for a time of 3:48.14, good for second place. The 'Jackets' time also bested the meet record and currently ranks 14th on the DIII qualifying list.
 
Elsewhere on the track, Ella Blau scored for the Yellowjackets in the 5,000 meters, placing eighth with a time of 17:55.62, while Alyssa Horng ran a personal-best time of 18:03.64, good for a 10th-place finish.
 
In the pentathlon, Grace McInerney placed eighth with 2,901 points in the 12-competitor field, finishing strong with a pair of top-five finishes in the final two events of the competition. McInerney set a new PR in the 60-meter hurdles (10th, 10.01s) to get the pentathlon started, and finished sixth in the shot put (9.08m). The sophomore then topped the long jump with a 5.33m leap, and wrapped up the pentathlon with a fourth-place finish and new PR of 2:30.89 in the 800 meters.
 
In the field events, Aimee Oszer scored Rochester's best finish with a fifth-place finish in the shot put with a 13.13m toss, while Madison Vargas came in 16th with an 11.78m throw.
 
Katie Atkins paced Rochester in the pole vault, achieving a height of 3.42m, good for 11th, while Ashleigh Barrett took 11th in the long jump to lead URochester, with Cassie Ward finishing 25th. Barrett's top jump came in at 5.38m, while Ward jumped 5.12m.
 
With seven events complete, Ithaca leads the team scoring with 45 points, with Scranton (23 points) and SUNY Geneseo (20 points) rounding out the top-three teams with 30 teams having scored at least a point. Rochester is tied for fifth place with Johns Hopkins, having tallied 14 points through the opening day of competition.
 
Rochester will wrap up their weekend in New York, NY, with the final day of the All-Atlantic Region Indoor Track & Field Championships, beginning on Saturday, March 7, at 10:00 a.m.