GAMBIER, Ohio – Friday's start of the 2013 North Coast Athletic Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championship was highlighted by a record run from Alexia Derkasch in the 400-meter preliminaries. The Kenyon College senior clocked in at 58.70 to break the program record and qualify for tomorrow's championship heat.

Friday's events opened the two-day NCAC Championship, which is being held at Wilder Track. A few field events and one running event were contested as finals. The remainder of the running events were preliminary heats, setting the stage for Saturday's finals.

Derkasch, who won her preliminary heat in the 400, qualified with the overall third-best time and clipped her own previous Kenyon record of 58.91, which she established earlier this season. Later in the day, Derkasch also qualified in the 200-meter dash. She completed that event in 26.30 and will enter Saturday's final as the No. 5 seed.

In the 800-meter run, Kenyon senior Kirkley Doyle and freshman Lauren Bittrich both posted qualifying times. Doyle clocked in 2:20.08 and Bittrich finished in 2:20.99. The two will head into tomorrow's final as the No. 6 and No. 8 seeds, respectively.

The Kenyon women had one final qualifier Friday. Senior Leah Jacques logged the fourth-fastest time in the 400-meter hurdles. She clocked in at 1:07.61 and was just about a half-second off the winning time.

As for the events that were held as finals, only Ramelle Brown was able to post a point for the Ladies. Brown cleared 2.90 meters in the pole vault and finished eighth with one point going toward Kenyon's overall team total. 

Saturday's session of the championship meet will begin at 10 a.m. with field events. The rest of the running events will commence at 2:30 p.m. Oberlin College will led the charge into day two with 80 team points. Ohio Wesleyan University currently sits in second place with 77 points and Denison University is third with 29 team points.