Paige Stoner continues to burn down the Syracuse Track record book

With all due respect to the rest of the Syracuse Orange female athletes Paige Stoner’s performances might be the most incredible of any current athlete. Stoner continues to demolish school records at an astonishing rate as she lowered her existing 5000m record from 15:41 to 15:28 on Thursday evening at the Payton Jordan Invitational.

At the meet hosted by the Stanford Cardinal Stoner’s time placed her 10th in the meet and put her as the 2nd fastest collegiate runner behind Weini Kelati of the New Mexico Lobos. This marked the second Syracuse record Paige has set at Stanford this season as she had previously broken her own 10k record.

Paige’s time is the 2nd-fastest in the NCAA this season. She also holds the 2nd fastest NCAA time in the 10k and the 10th fastest NCAA time in the 3,000m steeplechase. When she transferred from Lipscomb I don’t know if anyone expected her to demolish the previous Syracuse women’s distance records in this fashion. Look at how her times have dropped in these event:

I’ve been telling everyone who asked my opinion that Paige would probably focus on the steeplechase for NCAA’s because it gave her the best opportunity. After this latest race I’m not so sure that’s the case. She’s proving that she can hang with the best 5k and 10k runners and whichever race she pursues Paige is in position to improve upon her program-best 3rd place finish last year at the NCAA Outdoor Championships.

In other Orange alumni news, Justyn Knight reached the World Championships standard in the 5k running 13:20 to finish 6th at Stanford while Philo Germano set a new personal best in the event running 13:41. On the roads, Margo Malone won her marathon debut in Zurich while sister Shannon Malone was 4th at US Half-Maraton Championships in Pittsburgh. Colin Bennie was top American at the Lilac Bloomsday 12k and locally Griff Graves and Maegan Krifchin were the winners in the Syracuse Mountain Goat.