Courtesy: Chris Moulton

Montreal, QC (January 25, 2014) - The Guelph Gryphons men's and women's track and field teams had a very strong showing at this weekend's McGill Team Challenge with the women winning the team competition and the men finishing second in a very tight battle with York.

The Gryphons registered; two fieldhouse records, three meet records, had 13 CIS automatic qualifying marks and three school records. Headlining the Gryphons performance was Ross Proudfoot's wins in the 1500 and 3000 metres. The Sudbury, Ont. native broke the Tomlinson Fieldhouse records in both events running 3 minutes 44.08 seconds in the 1500 and 8 minutes 2.78 seconds in the 3000, the 1500 metre mark also eclipsed Kyle Boorsma's school record, both performances rank Proudfoot tops in the CIS.

In addition to Proudfoot's runs Julia Wallace broke her own meet record in the triple jump with a jump of 12.56 metres, a mark that ranks her second in the CIS. Other record breaking performances for the Gryphons were from the victorious 4 x 200 metre women's relay team that broke the school record with a time of 1 minutes 40.82 seconds and Sarah Dougherty who broke the Gryphon record in the weight throw winning with a throw of 17.00 metres. The relay team is currently ranked first in the CIS while Dougherty sits third, all of the record marks broke their respective CIS automatic qualifying standards. 

Proudfoot was not the only Gryphon runner to garner two automatic qualifying marks for the CIS Championships as Aaron Hendrikx also accomplished the feat in the 1500 and 3000 metres. All told seven Gryphons achieved CIS qualifying marks in the 3000 metres; Proudfoot, Hendrikx as well as Tristan Woodfine and Christopher Dulhanty on the men's side while Heather Petrick, Carise Thompson and Katrina Allison got the job done on the women's side. In the men's 600 metres Anthony Romaniw bettered the automatic standard with a run of 1 minute 19.41 seconds. Romaniw was also a leg on the 4 x 800 metres that secured their place on the CIS start line with a 7 minute and 36.81 seconds.

The Gryphons track teams will be back in action next week at the York Open.

Results are posted at http://mcgilltrack.com/McGillTeamChallenge2014/

Archived video footage is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ectopT0kvi0