Bates women's track and field broke multiple team, meet and Williams College facility records en route to a third-place finish out of 32 scoring teams Saturday at the New England Division III Outdoor Championships, the Bobcats' best showing at the meet since 2006.
One week after claiming the NESCAC 800-meter title, sophomore Ayden Eickhoff (Corvallis, Mont.) broke her own team record and won the New England Division III crown in the event with her time of 2:11.17, breaking the former record of 2:11.88 she set in 2016. She won the race by 0.40 seconds over runner-up Leah Strangio of WPI.
Bates' 4x400 relay team of Eickhoff, senior captain Allison Hill, first-year Paige Rabb and senior captain Claire Markonic finished first by a 2.78-second margin over runner-up Williams, with a time of 3:50.16, breaking the team, facility and meet records along the way. Bates' former team record of 3:52.48 was set in 2014 by Sarah Fusco, Melanie Ehrenberg, Angeleque Hartt and Markonic.
One week after notching the team's best-ever finish at the NESCAC Championships (second place), the Bobcats achieved their highest New England Division III team finish since placing second out of 28 teams in 2006.
