Men's Results / Women's Results
GORHAM, Maine—Competing with a full team for the first time in 2015, the Gordon College Track & Field teams turned in a pair of top five finishes at the University of Southern Maine Invitational on Saturday. Leanne Beedle (Bethany, Conn.) broke the school record in the 600-meter race and helped lead Gordon to a fifth-place finish out of 10 teams. Senior Zak Flowers (Fountain Valley, Calif.) won the weight throw event and broke a school record in the shot put to pace Gordon to a bronze medal finish at the meet.
 
Freshman Linnea Hultberg (La Habra, Calif.) provided the women's team with their first points of the day, finishing third in the triple jump. Hultberg tied with Catherine Haut of Colby with a jump of 9.58 meters, finishing three-quarters of a meter short of the school record.
 
Later in the day, Corrine Previte (Danvers, Mass.) bested the competition in the 400 Meter Dash with a time of 1:00.43, to earn 10 points for the Fighting Scots. A duo from Bates finished just behind the sophomore sprinter, but Previte held a one-second advantage over the second-place runner. In the next race, Beedle broke the school record in the 600 with a time of 1:43.23. Her mark beat her seeded time by five seconds to garner a silver finish.
 
Previte turned in another top-three finish in the 200 Meter, tying for second place with a time of 27.38. Southern Maine's Nicole Kirk won the event in 25.53. In the final event of the day for the women, Gordon's 4x400 'A' team ran the fastest time of the day in 4:21.29. After watching the first heat run, the top Gordon squad sailed to a two-second win over the top team from Colby.
 
Southern Maine won its own event with a total of 177.50 points. Bates, Colby, Division II Assumption and Gordon rounded out the top five.
 
Flowers kicked the men's meet off with a bang, winning the weight throw in the day's first event before coming in second in the shot put just a half hour later. Flowers beat second-place finisher Alexander Cerbo by a quarter of a meter, but no other competitor was within four meters. In the next event, Flowers broke the school record in the shot put by half a foot—12.85 meters. The senior broke the record in the same event at USM last January.
 
Gordon's men also competed well in the 600m and two-mile races. Colin Ponzani (Avon, Conn.) finished just two seconds behind Roger Charest of Southern Maine for first place. A few events later, Damon Kilgore (Londonderry, N.H.) was the top Division III finisher with a time of 9:00.03 to earn eight needed points for the Fighting Scots.
 
The relays were also kind to the Fighting Scots harriers, grabbing a second-place finish in the 4x400 and the top spot in the distance medley relay.
 
D-II Assumption won the men's competition with 157.50 overall points. Host Southern Maine came in second with 147 points and Gordon struck bronze with 73 points.
 
Gordon has three weeks off before traveling to Smith College for the New England Championships on February 20^th.