Indoor track gets on track at Dartmouth

Author: Livingston Burgess

Middlebury's men's and women's track teams opened their seasons Sunday by throwing some of their top competitors into a difficult field at the 38th annual Dartmouth Relays in Hanover, N.H. The Panthers walked away with several strong individual performances, a good sense of where the team stands and most importantly, according to Head Coach Martin Beatty, a feeling of a strong potential for growth.

The highlight of a meet that featured an abundance of young talent came, appropriately enough, in sophomore Jen Brenes' performance in the 60-meter hurdles. After posting seventh in the preliminary and semi-final races, Brenes jumped to fifth overall and second among collegiate athletes after running a blistering 9:46 in the final.

Beatty saw Brenes' run as a demonstration of the Panthers' ability to compete on the highest levels. "There are a lot of Division I and II schools who come to Dartmouth, so the competition's pretty intense. It makes Jen's performance that much more special," said Beatty.

Brenes was by no means the only Panther underclassman to post strong results in Hanover. In the 400 meters, Anjuli Demers '10 was eighth overall and third among college athletes with a 1:00.97, and Simone Weisman '09 placed a collegiate-level fifth in 1:01.89.

"They both ran very well," said Beatty. "Our 400 women's runners were very strong, both individually and in the relays."

The relay team, including Demers and Weisman along with Kara Plunkett '07 and Susanna Merrill '09, took fifth place overall in 4:17.29. Merrill also ran individually in the 800 meters, placing 22nd in prelims with a time of 2:32.56. Kelley Coughlan '09 rounded out the women's side with her 22nd place finish in the 60-meter hurdles, a time of 10.59.

A slightly older men's team saw most of their stronger performances from their veterans, led by Pat Sedney's '08 showing in the pole vault. Sedney's seventh place finish paced the team, and his 13' 3/4" loft was a personal record.

Sedney's counterpart in the field events, captain Pascal Losambe '07, took fifth among collegiate athletes and ninth overall in the shotput. His throw went for 13.98 meters and was good enough to qualify him for the New England Division III Championships. Losambe also placed 18th overall in the 35 lb. weight throw with a distance of 12.22 meters.

Also, Middlebury entered a pair of first-years in the 60-meter dash. Derek Sakamoto and Isaiah Walker posted times of 7.64 and 7.78, respectively. Neither was able to make it out of the preliminary round, but Beatty pointed out that the field at Dartmouth was stacked, especially in such a popular event.

"There are some kids who are recent college graduates, some Division I schools and some independent teams, so the competition gets pretty stiff," he said.

The other men's entrants were Alex Wellman '07 (12th, 60-meter hurdles, 9.08), Conor O'Neill '07 (23rd, 800 meters, 2:04.54), Ben Fowler '09 (22nd, 800 meters, 2:04.49), and Ian O'Reilly '08 (15th, 1 mile, 4:32.8).

Overall, Beatty saw the meet as a positive step in what he anticipates to be a strong season. "This is the first meet of the year, and people are still getting into shape," he said. "This is just a time for us to start building and to see what our baseline is. Now that we've set that baseline and gotten our feet wet, we're just going to try to improve week by week."