NORTHFIELD, Minn. — When the final event was completed and the team standings were tabulated, the Saint Mary's University women's track and field team was relegated to the No. 8 spot in the 12-team field — well back of conference champion St. Thomas.

Yet, despite the Cardinals' distant finish in the team race, SMU's performance certainly raised a few eye brows.

And turned a few heads..

The Cardinals' foursome of Ashley Dingels (Gibbon, Minn.), Amber Liss (Onalaska, Wis.), Jenny Folgers (McHenry, Ill.) and Assumpta Mbele (Northfield, Minn.) not only broke one school record, but they also set a pair of Carleton College Recreation Center marks in pacing the SMU effort.

The quartet shattered the school record and the arena mark in winning the 4 x 200 in 1:49.96, then added a third-place time of 4:09.59, a mark that also bettered the Carleton arena record.

And that was just the beginning.

Liss chipped in a second-place showing in the 400 (60.64) and a seventh-place effort in the 200 (27.34), while Dingels was third in the 200 (26.81), third in the pentathlon (3,109 points) and sixth in the high jump (5-1).

Dingels may have settled for sixth in the high jump this time around, but in a week — when the freshman becomes SMU's first-ever participant in the NCAA Division III national championships — her goals will be much higher.

On the men's side, Todd Yankwoski (Chicago, Ill.) posted a fourth-place finish in the pentathlon (2,769 points) to lead SMU to a ninth-place finish.

The Cardinals' only other points came from three eighth-place finishing relay teams. Yankowski, Jon Bell (Ogden, Utah), Shawn Stewart (McHenry, Ill.) and Dwyne Smith (Burnsville, Minn.) teamed to place eighth in the 4 x 200 (1:35.53), while Stewart and Bell were joined by Jim Baertsch (Winona, Minn.) and Ethan Lane (Winona, Minn.) to clock a time of 3:32.30 in the 4 x 400, and Baertsch, Smith, B.J. Klenke (Jordan, Minn.) and Keith Pieschek (Sturgeon Bay, Wis.) posted a time of 11:01.92 in the distance medley.