SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. --- The Golden Eagle track & field team concluded their best outdoor conference championship run in 14 years on Saturday afternoon, with Clarion taking ninth place at this year's PSAC Outdoor Track & Field Championships hosted by Slippery Rock. Though the day was marred by slippery, wet conditions, the Golden Eagles managed to finish the meet strong with three top-five finishes on Saturday.
 
Clarion finished in the top-10 for the first time since the 2011 season, when they took 10^th place with 26 team points. This season marks their best conference outdoor finish since 2009, when they placed eighth with 21.5 team points.
 
The finish was buoyed by good results on Saturday afternoon, with a trio of Golden Eagles earning top-five finishes to close out the action. The first Clarion athlete to earn a place on the podium was thrower Shelly Jones, who worked her way to a fourth-place finish in the Shot Put. Jones fouled on her first two attempts of the preliminary flight, but the senior responded with her best toss of the day, sending the implement 13.17m to earn a spot in the finals. Jones did not improve her placement in the ensuing three throws but neither did anyone else above her, clinching a fourth-place finish.
 
Around that very same time, Mackenzie Carver was competing in the finals of the 800m. The junior distance runner had already run one event on Saturday, taking 10^th in the 1500m with a PR of 4:50.42 that just missed out on cracking the program's outdoor performance list. She didn't miss a beat in her performance in the 800m, taking fourth overall with a time of 2:17.73.
 
The third placement for the Golden Eagles on Saturday came in the Triple Jump, where record-breaking jumper Delaney Beard finished her season with a fifth-place finish. Beard qualified for the finals of the event with an 11.47m leap in her second attempt of the day and then finished the finals with her two best jumps of the day, hitting a mark of 11.57m in her first jump.
 
Elsewhere on Saturday, Autumn Pettinato reached the finals of the Javelin, coming up just shy of scoring with a ninth-place finish. Pettinato was in 11^th place heading into her final throw of the prelim before uncorking a toss of 37.47m, a new PR by more than a meter and good enough to place ninth in the field. She came up just one centimeter shy of that mark in her first throw of the finals, though, and remained there for the rest of the event. Emma Pesicka also competed on Saturday, in the Shot Put.