Intense downpours shortened the Maryland Track Invitational on Saturday, but the women’s track team snuck out a win in one of the three events held and showed significant strength in the other two.

Bulldog long-distance runner Anne Martin ’05 took first place in the steeplechase before the rain came down. Although she fell early on in the race, Martin still narrowly edged Princeton’s lead runner Carrie Strickland to win, finishing with a time of 10:57.80.

Yale runner Claire Hamilton ’07 followed close behind with a third place finish and a time of 11:04.83.

In the first heat of the women’s 5K race, which opened the invite, Eli runner Jackie Myers ’07 finished first with a time of 18:36.12 — just two seconds ahead of second-place finisher Ashley Vann from Howard University.

“Winning this heat was definitely a new experience for me,” Myers said. “It was difficult to keep my own pace since I’m used to staying with the pack in practice, but I just envisioned my teammates with me and finished strong.”

Unfortunately, the rain began to fall before the second heat of the race could start.

“We were all pretty disappointed that we had to make a seven-hour drive to Maryland just to get rained out,” said Lindsay Donaldson ’08, who was about to walk to the starting line of her 1500-meter race when the rain picked up.

The 4×100-meter relay was the third and final event to take place Saturday afternoon. Yale finished in 12th place behind Ivy League rivals Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, who finished sixth and seventh place respectively.

Although the invitational was cut short, the cancelled events will not be made up. The Elis will move on to their next competition next weekend in Cambridge, Mass., when they will team up with their archenemy Harvard to take on Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

“Normally, it would have been a problem to play on the same side as Harvard, but this meet is a really big tradition,” Martin said. “So I’m sure just this once we can work together to some good wins.”