Day 1 of the Colonial League Track and Field Championships is in the books, and it didn't take long for the Northwestern girls to make a big splash.

The Lady Tiger 4x800-meter relay team of Sabrina Mertz, Carly Pierce, Sarah Segan and Rachelle Cerrone took gold in the first finals event on the track on Tuesday afternoon at Whitehall High School. Their finish in 9:31.65 also set a new Colonial League meet record, one in which Northwestern set a year ago.

"That wasn't our goal at all," Cerrone said of the record. "We were seeded at like 9:53, and we ran that at ASD and I wasn't even there. We were just trying to do our best because we didn't even know what the record was until after we started. We did not see that coming. But it was definitely great to do that."

Two other Tigers placed in the top four of their respective events on Tuesday to earn medals. Alexis Gawelko finished second in the 300-meter hurdles, while Harry Hall finished fourth in the high jump.

The preliminary round also saw a number of Tigers advance to Wednesday's finals, which were held after Press deadline. (See next week's issue for more coverage.)

Lauren Anderson and Cam Richardson each qualified for both the 100- and 200-meter dashes, while Gawelko made the 100-meter hurdles as the top qualifier. Stacy Everett and Elizabeth Iobst also qualified for the 100-meter hurdles finals, and Emily Renner will run in the finals of the 200-meter dash.