Going Out on Top

By Patrick Bohn, June 2, 2021

Trio of national championships caps off final athletic competitions of the year.

Parley Hannan and Meghan Matheny holding trophies

Victories by Parley Hannan and Meghan Matheny highlighted a weekend that saw six Bomber women earn all-American status.

(Photos by d3photography)

Ithaca College’s 2021 spring sports season came to a close last weekend, and several student-athletes brought home trophies.

At the NCAA Outdoor Championships in Greensboro, N.C., the women’s track and field team rode three individual national championships to a fourth-place finish.

Parley Hannan ’21 won both the 10,000-meter and 5,000-meter runs. In the 10,000, she pulled away from her closest competitor after six laps and cruised to a 34:33.53 finish and her first career track and field title.

Two days later in the 5,000, Hannan moved into first place with just a few laps remaining and turned in her fastest time on the final lap to win by 8 seconds in a time of 16:22.85.

The women’s team’s 4th place finish marked the second-best finish in program history.

(Photo by d3photography)

With the victory, Hannan became the seventh student-athlete in school history to win more than one national title at a single championship event.

While Hannan was running away from her competition, Meghan Matheny ’22 was vaulting over hers. The top seed at the event, Matheny won her first national championship after clearing 3.85 meters.

The wins brought the total number of individual national championships in Ithaca College history to 49.

In addition to those standout performances, several other members of the women’s team claimed all-American status over the weekend to help the Bombers to a 4th place finish in the team standings.

Also competing in the pole vault, Sara Altonen ’24 finished tied for 8th after clearing 3.70 meters. Logan Bruce ’21 finished 4th in the heptathlon with 5,035 points, Katelyn Hutchison ’22 finished 7th in the 400-meter dash with a time of 56.25, and Samantha Healy ’21 finished 8th in the hammer throw with a mark of 50.86 meters.

With a second-place finish in the pole vault, Dom Mikula became the first member of the men's team to finish as national runner-up since 1988.

(Photo by d3photography)

On the men’s side, Dom Mikula ’22 finished as national runner-up in the pole vault after clearing a mark of 5.10 meters. It was the same height cleared by winner Noah Zastrow of the University of Wisconsin-Stout, but Zastrow finished ahead of Mikula due to needing fewer attempts to clear that height.

It’s the fourth time ever — and first time since 1988 — that a member of the men’s team has finished as national runner-up.

A second-place finish by the Varsity 8 boat helped the women's crew team to a third place finish at the NCAA Championship.

(Photo by d3photography)

The women’s crew team competed in the national championship in Sarasota, Florida, this past weekend as well. Both the Varsity 8 and Second Varsity 8 boats took part in the Grand Final, with the V8 boat jumping out to a lead over the first 1,000 meters before finishing as runner up to Bates College with a time of 6:37.730.

The 2V8 boat finished in 4th place with a time of 6:58.936. Combined, that gave the Bombers a total of 33 points, good for third place overall. It was the program’s best finish since its 2006 national runner-up effort.