The girls varsity track and field team won the Founders League Championship Meet on Saturday, May 14, at the Trinity-Pawling School.

The meet began with field events, where nine Loomis Chaffee athletes scored a total of 66 points to give the team a solid start to the day. Junior Jillian Rinaldi set the tone with a personal record on her last throw of the discus event, good for fourth place and valuable team points.

On the track, the Pelicans strove to match or improve upon their seeded rankings, and many succeeded in this endeavor. And while illness and injury prevented some teammates from competing, rookies stepped up and impressively filled the gaps.

As they had in the field events, the Pelicans scored in every running event, adding 92 points to the team total and clinching the league title with 158 points. Hotchkiss placed second overall with 131 points, and Taft was third with 92.

Along with many personal bests and seed-defying performances, Loomis Chaffee had individual champions in five events: senior captain Willa Hock in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles and the long jump, sophomore Logan Elie in the 800 meters, senior captain Brooke Barry in the 1500 meters, and freshman Natalie Crocker in the 3000 meters.

The team’s depth, however, was the key to winning the league title as 17 Loomis athletes scored points for the Pelicans.

The full list of results and times can be found online.

The season culminates on Saturday, May 21, when the team competes in the New England Prep School Track Association Division I Championship at St. Paul’s.