On a sunny, breezy day in western Massachusetts, the track teams competed in the NESCAC Championships, hosted by Williams College on April 25. As the one true team competition of the year, the winning team retains bragging rights for an entire year. When the dust settled after over 8 hours of competition, the Williams women and Tufts men emerged as victors.
The Middlebury women finished third, scoring 98 points, while the men were fourth with 73 points.
The competition started with the men’s 10,000m. Jake Fox ’15, making his debut at the distance, won a sprint to the finish to take seventh place in a time of 31:52.22 and scoring two points to start the day.
Not to be outdone, Adrian Walsh ’16 led the charge in the women’s 10,000m, immediately taking control of the race. As the race progressed, though, Amherst junior Lexi Sinclair slowly worked her way up to Walsh, eventually passing her in the waning kilometers to take the lead and ultimately the victory. Walsh finished second by running 36:27.98. Katie Carlson ’15.5 finished fifth in a time of 37:01.60, running a very smart race for the entire distance.
The men’s 4x100m finished second in 42.82 seconds. The team of Sam Rives ’15, Mike Pallozzi ’18, Fritz Parker ’15 and Will Bain ’15 was only bested by the quartet from Williams, which featured the seventh-ranked 100m runner in Division III. Parker concluded his four-year career on that relay with two NESCAC titles and two runner-up finishes.
In the women’s 1500m, Sarah Guth ’15, Alison Maxwell ’15 and Robin Vincent ’18 were able to score a combined 18 points. Guth ran 4:38.52 for second, Maxwell finished in 4:39.37 for third, and Vincent — running just her second race of the spring season — hit 4:41.33, a personal best by over six seconds.
In the morning, the men were able to qualify three athletes into the afternoon’s finals of the 110m hurdles. The final saw Taylor Shortsleeve ’15, who was the morning’s fastest qualifier, finish fourth in a personal best time of 15.10. Rookies Pallozzi and Tyler Farrell ’18 finished in sixth and eighth with times of 15.35 and 15.44, respectively.
On a tough day for 400m running due to breezes, Alex Morris ’16 was able to finish fifth in a time of 60.28. For the men, defending champion Alex Nichols ’17 also finished fifth by running 49.80 while James Mulliken ’18 took sixth from an unseeded section with a personal best time of 49.93.
In the men’s 800m, rookie Kevin Serrao ’18 finished third in a personal best time of 1:53.50. Serrao was not intimidated by national champion Mitchell Black of Tufts, handling the quick early pace.
In the 400m hurdles, Paige Fernandez ’17 ran a personal best time of 64.21 to finish third and Jackie Kearney ’16 ran 66.46 for seventh. Defending champion Wood finished sixth in the men’s race by running 55.33.
Maxwell doubled back to win the 5,000m in 17:31.82, running comfortably behind the leaders of the race until the final lap when she put 10 seconds between herself and second place finisher Alison Smith of Williams to easily win the race. Alyssa Taylor ’17 quietly put together a personal best of over 10 seconds to finish eighth in a time of 18:16.60.
“My plan was to keep my head in the game and be very aware of how each race was playing out so that I could sit back and wait until the end of the races to make my move,” Maxwell said. “That didn’t work out so well for me in the 1500, which was a lot faster than I expected, but was great for the 5k, a race that I have little experience in and needed to not be too aggressive in.”
Two relays concluded the meet: the 4x400m and 4x800m. The men’s 4x400m of Parker, Farrell, Mulliken and Nichols finished fourth in a season best 3:24.25 while their women’s counterpart of Halle Gustafson ’16, Fernandez, Kearney and Morris took third in 3:58.54, also a season best. The men’s 4x800 of Luke Carpinello ’16, Sam Klockenkemper ’17, Sam Cartwright ’16, and Serrao also finished fourth with 7:55.44 and the women’s team, comprising Lauren Bougioukas ’16, Nikki Schachman ’16, Vincent, and Guth, took second by combining for 9:19.80.
The most impressive showing for Middlebury came in the women’s javelin. Carly Andersen ’16 won the event by throwing a huge personal best of 42.15m and Devon Player ’18 finished second with a heave of 40.81m.
Taylor Moore ’18 though filled the void left by injured teammate Ian Riley ’16, finishing fourth with a throw of 50.69m, a personal best by over five meters.
The men’s pole vault also stepped up with Conor Simons ’16 vaulting 4.30m for second place and Jared Whitman ’17 clearing 4.15m for third place. One of the most unpredictable events in track and field, the two Panthers combined for more points in the event than any other set of teammates in the field.
The teams will regroup to compete in the Division III New England Championships hosted by MIT on May 1 and May 2.
