HANOVER, IND. -- The Trine University women's track & field team competed at the Hanover College Invitational to begin the 2018 outdoor season and placed sixth overall.
The Thunder finished with a team score of 53 points to place sixth of 12 teams. Berea (Ky.) College captured the team title with 130 points and was followed by Centre (Ky.) College with 120.5 points. Host school Hanover rounded out the top three with 94 points.
Trine earned most of its team points in the field events with three individual event victories that included senior Kara Eck (Auburn, Ind./DeKalb) who won both the shot put and hammer throw. Sophomore Andrea Hagar (Goshen, Ind./Fairfield) also found her way to the winner's circle in the discus throw.
Eck recorded a best throw of 40' 5.00" (12.32 meters) in the shot put to take top honors and then posted a winning distance of 164' 6.00" (50.16 meters) in the hammer throw to place first. Her distance in the hammer already ranks as the seventh farthest in Division III after her first outdoor competition of the season.
Hagar threw a best distance of 129' 1.00" (39.34 meters) in the discus to win the event and also placed in the top-10 in the hammer by finishing ninth following a mark of 132' 8.00" (40.44 meters).
Freshman Jenny Flora (Greenfield, Ind./Greenfield Central) recorded a pair of top-five finishes in the discus and the javelin. Flora placed fifth in the discus with a mark of 118' 7.00" (36.16 meters) and fourth in the javelin at 107' 4.00" (32.73 meters).
On the track, senior Kyla Binfet (West Yellowstone, Mont./West Yellowstone) posted the top overall time in the 3000-meter steeplechase with a time of 11:47.98.
Junior Lacie Piekarski (Spring Lake, Mich./Spring Lake) recorded the other top time in the running events with a sixth-place mark in the 5000-meter run with a time of 19:33.32.
Trine is scheduled to travel to Indianapolis to take part in the all-day Marian University Knight Open on Friday, Apr. 6.