Myrtle Beach, SC -- Forced to battle an earlier bout of food poisoning and then weather delays of over three hours on Saturday evening, WPI graduate student Grace Hadley (North Reading, MA) battled her way to a second place finish in the 5,000 meters on the final day of competition at the NCAA Division III Track and Field Championships at Doug Shaw Memorial Stadium in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. 
 
Hadley, who had captured indoor national championships in the mile and the Distance Medley Relay (DMR), this March, entered the outdoor championships seeded first in the 1,500 meters and second in the 5,000 meters but was forced to medically scratch from the 1,500 Thursday following a severe case of food poisoning Wednesday night and Thursday.  Then, while the 5K was originally scheduled for 7pm Saturday, it was shifted to about an hour earlier when the meet was moved to a rolling schedule to avoid possible thunderstorms, but the storms still arrived, causing a multi-hour delay until around 10pm.
 
When the action started, Hadley immediately set the pace, leading for a majority of the first 3,600 meters.  With less than a mile to go, the graduate student was passed by senior Fiona Smith of St. Benedict, who had won the NCAA Cross Country title in the fall, repeated as the indoor champion in the 3,000 and 5,000 meters, and captured the 10,000 race Thursday in hot and humid conditions and then sophomore Faith Duncan of Wilmington (OH) broke away from Smith with about 600 meters to go to give the 11th-seed a big upset with a time of 16:44.12 but Hadley made up five seconds on the final lap (1:14.25 to 1:19.44) to outkick the five-time national champion to finish second in a time of 16:46.66. 
 
It marked the second All-America award for Hadley in the Outdoor 5,000 meters (2023), sixth in Track and Field, and seventh overall when you include her fourth place performance at the 2023 Cross Country Championships.
                                                    
The second place showing provided eight team points for the Engineers, which were enough for the Crimson and Gray to tie for 27th overall with Claremont-Mudd-Scripps  (CA), Middlebury and Rowan (NJ) at the national championships.  Washington (MO) captured the team title by racking up 71.5 points to easily out-distance second-place UW- La Crosse (47.5) and third-place MIT (47).
 
Overall, the WPI Track and Field now sports 72 All-Americas won, including 54 since 2009 when now Director of Cross Country and Track Field Brian Chabot took over as head coach.  It marks the fourth for first-year head coach Emily Mauro.
 
Thursday on the opening day of the meet, Gavin Fleck (Bend, OR) finished ninth in the pole vault, and Elizabeth Matticoli (South Brunswick, NJ) and David Reynolds (Andover, NH) placed 13th in the javelin and 10,000 meters respectively.
 
Results