PEORIA, Ill. -- The Bradley men's and women's track and field teams have a busy week ahead, with the Braves sending individuals to three different meets Friday and Saturday. Eight Bradley runners will trek to California for the Stanford Invitational and San Francisco State Distance Carnival, while the rest of the squads will travel to Charleston, Ill., for the Eastern Illinois Big Blue Classic.
The Stanford Invitational will help highlight the weekend's activities Friday and Saturday, with four Braves slated to run. Sophomore Emily Delvo (Springfield, Ill./Sacred Heart Griffin) owns the top 1,500 meter time in the Missouri Valley Conference this season and looks to challenge Mary Goldkamp's school record of 4:23.18 after clocking a 4:26.66 at last week's Nashville Black & Gold Friday in Stanford, Calif.
Sophomore Kristen Busch (Waterloo, Ill./Freeburg) and junior Sarah McMahon (Colfax, Wis./Colfax) are scheduled to close out Friday night's action at the Stanford Invite in the 10,000 meters. Busch broke the Bradley 3,000 meter record Saturday and will be running the 10,000 meters for the first time in her career. McMahon, who competed in the 10,000 meters at last year's NCAA Regional, owns the second fastest 10,000 meter time in school history at 34:53.16.
Saturday's action at the Stanford Invitational will include Delvo and her twin brother Eric Delvo (Springfield, Ill./Sacred Heart Griffin) competing in the 800 meters. Eric will also run Friday in the 1,500 meters at the San Francisco State Distance Carnival. His career-best times in both events rank among the top 10 in program history.
Junior Chase Coffey (Hanna City, Ill./Farmington) and freshman Patrick Campbell (Wauwatosa, Wis./Wauwatosa) will both run in the 10,000 meters Friday afternoon at San Francisco State, while fellow freshman Caleb Beck (Oswego, Ill./Oswego) will compete in the 5,000 meters for the men's team. Coffey, who broke his own school record in the 3,000 meters last week, will be competing in the 10,000 meters for the first time in his career. Beck's 3,000 meter time last week is second in school history, while Campbell's 3,000 time in Nashville, Tenn., is third best in program history.
Sophomore Caitlin Busch (Waterloo, Ill./Freeburg) will be the lone representative from the Bradley women's team at San Francisco State, running in the 5,000 meters Friday. Busch posted the fourth-fastest 3,000 meter time in school history earlier this year and looks to improve on her career-best 5,000 meter time of 17:46.02.
“We are excited to see how the crew traveling out west will respond to the opportunity to race with the nation's best distance runners,” said Bradley head coach Marc Burns. “Our goal is to come back to Peoria with a few marks that will stand up as NCAA preliminary round qualifiers. The Big Blue meet at EIU has been an excellent meet in the past and it looks like it will be strong again this year. If the winds calm down a bit on Friday night and Saturday we should see some nice marks by the Braves.”
In addition to the meets out west, Bradley is also slated to compete at the Eastern Illinois Big Blue Classic in Charleston, Ill., Friday and Saturday. Friday's action will feature the men's and women's 5,000 meters with the Bradley men sending five individuals to run in Friday night's 5,000 meters and the women's squad with seven entries.
Saturday's action is scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m. with the field events and the running events are set to start around noon. Bradley will have entries in the 800 meters, 1,500 meters, 100 hurdles, 200 meter dash and 4x400 meter relay Saturday in Charleston, Ill.
The Braves are scheduled to run at the Illinois Twilight Friday, April 11.
