The track teams began their postseasons this past weekend, competing in the New England Division III Championships. The men and women’s meets are contested at different facilities; this year, both teams were in Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley, with the men competing at Springfield College while the women were hosted by Smith College. The men’s team finished in 17th place with 14 points and the women took home 7th place by scoring 47 points. MIT was crowned team champion for both genders.
The mile run was the highlight for the men. Sam Cartwright ’16 secured all-New England honors with a fifth place finish in a time of 4:19.57. Wilder Schaaf ’14.5 was not far behind, crossing the line in seventh with 4:21.65. In the 5000m run, Kevin Wood ’15 finished sixth by running 15:08.
On the infield, Taylor Shortsleeve ’15 missed making the final in the 60m hurdles by 0.01 seconds, completing the race in 8.58 seconds. Jared Whitman ’17 set an indoor personal best in the pole vault by clearing 4.05m (13’3.5”), good enough for a five-way tie for 11th. Teammate Conor Simons ’16 was also a part of that tie by clearing the same height. In the shot put, Danny Plunkett ’16 scored a point with an 8th place finish by launching the shot 14.03m (46’0.5”).
The women kicked off their meet on Friday, Feb. 20, by placing two athletes in the top 8 in the pentathlon. Hannah Blackburn ’17 broke Maddie Pronovost’s ’17 school record by a mere four points, scoring 2901 points for a 5th place finish. Pronovost was only slightly off her previous best of 2897 points, this time scoring 2870 points to finish 7th.
The next day, Saturday, Feb. 21, was time for the Middlebury distance women to shine. The women were successful in the mile; Alison Maxwell ’15 finished runner-up to Maryann Gong of MIT by running 4:53.63 to Gong’s 4:51.12. Their times are currently the two fastest in Division III. Summer Spillane ’15 finished third by running 4:59.62, which ranks her ninth in Division III after track indexing. Erzsie Nagy ’17 and Sarah Guth ’15 also scored in the mile, taking sixth and seventh in times of 5:02.48 and 5:02.82, respectively. All told, the mile accounted for 19 of the team’s 47 points.
“The two of us went out in front, but I think the rest of the pack was right behind us at the beginning,” Maxwell said. “I think that throughout the race we kept pulling farther and farther away from them. I was hoping to out kick her in the last lap, but that’s when she finally shook me off and gained that two seconds on me.”
The quartet of milers was not finished; several hours later, the four teamed up to race the 4x800m relay and took 2nd place to Wesleyan with a time of 9:30.21.
“It was a pretty fun team, because since we had all had great races already, we weren’t feeling too much pressure for the relay,” Maxwell said. “ But at the same time, we were in the slow heat because we were entered with No Time and still wanted to place overall, so we were kind of chasing the imagined leaders of the fast heat, which ran after us.”
Elsewhere on the track, Adrian Walsh ’16 was runner-up in the 5000m by running 17:24, a time currently ranking her 11th in Division III. Paige Fernandez ’17 set a personal best in the 600m run by over four seconds, running 1:37.88 to finish fifth. The 4x400 team of Fernandez, Kate McCluskey ’18, Perri Silverhart ’16.5 and Alex Morris ’16 crossed the line in 4:05.13, good enough for seventh.
Next on the schedule is the Open New England Championships at Boston University on Feb. 27 and 28. “Opens” takes the top athletes from all NCAA divisions in New England and is always an opportunity to run fast: last year, all of the teams’ NCAA qualifying marks were run at this meet.
