The track teams continued their postseason schedule on Friday, May 1, and Saturday, May 2, competing in the New England Division III Championships hosted by MIT. Though the meet is scored, Middlebury traditionally does not attempt to win the team title, instead looking for strong individual performances. As such, the men scored a meager seven points for 22nd place while the women tallied up 32 points to tie for 10th. MIT ran away with both the men’s and women’s meets: the men scored 171.5 points and the women’s 180.
Hannah Blackburn ’17 and Maddie Pronovost ’17 contested their first heptathlons of the year at the meet, earning strong results. The heptathlon is a two-day event comprising seven different track and field events. Each mark is worth a certain number of points; the athlete with the highest combined point total for all events is the winner. Blackburn eclipsed the school record by scoring 4177 points to place third and Pronovost scored 3708 points for eighth.
On the track, the race of the meet was the women’s 1500m. Robin Vincent ’18 continued her meteoric rise in the event, running an almost-10-second personal best of 4:31.66 for third place. Sarah Guth ’15 was close behind, finishing in 4:32.47, a personal best by more than three seconds, which placed her fifth in the meet.
“The race went out pretty fast — our first 400m was around 71 seconds,” Vincent said. “I got scared that I was going to burn out after the first lap, so I hung back a little bit and tried to draft on the runners in front of me. I was never in the lead, but early in the race I went out in the third lane to get around people and try to run right behind Sarah. I’m generally not a person who relies on a kick but I seemed to have one, which was awesome.”
Vincent is currently ranked seventh in Division III in the 1500m and Guth is ranked 10th. Additionally, Erzsie Nagy ’17 is ranked 17th and indoor mile national champion Alison Maxwell ’15 is sitting at 19th with times from earlier in the season. If the season ended today, all four women would qualify for the NCAA Championships in the event.
Devon Player ’18 and Carly Andersen ’16 continued their takeover of the javelin. Player got the best of Andersen this week by throwing a personal best 42.02m for second place. Andersen threw 40.61m to take third.
Other notable performances included Lauren Bougioukas ‘16 running a personal best of 2:18.59 in the 800m for 10th and Catie Skinner ’17 running a personal best of 11:36.43 in the 3000m steeplechase, good for 8th place.
For the men’s team, Luke Carpinello ’16 ran a personal best in the 800m of 1:54.39 to place eighth. Rookie James Mulliken ’18 ran a season best of 1:56.17 in the same event to win his heat.
Sebastian Matt ’16 was fourth in the 1500m by running 3:54.77, also a personal best. Tyler Farrell ’18 took 10th in the 400m hurdles with a personal best time of 55.89, his first race under 56 seconds.
In the field, Jared Whitman ’17 continued his impressive season in the pole vault, clearing 4.35m for yet another personal best. Conor Simons ’16 — the runner up in the vault at last weekend’s NESCAC championships — suffered a significant injury during the event and was unable to finish competing.
The teams will return to MIT on May 8 and 9 for the NEICAAA Championships, colloquially known as Open New Englands. The meet invites every track team in New England from all NCAA divisions, making for stiff competition and fast times.
