Track team too tiny to win

Author: Livingston Burgess

Coach Martin Beatty led eight women and six men into Lewiston, Maine for the Division III New England Championships, where, despite not contending for any team honors, strong individual performances were in no short supply.

The women's side was highlighted by the multi-event performances of two underclassmen, both of whom combined for 19 of Middlebury's 30 team points. Anjuli Demers '10 sprinted to second place in the 200-meter dash, beating out three close competitors all within a tenth of a second of her 26.60 seconds. Demers also picked up third place honors in the 400-meter dash. She was one of only four women to break the minute mark with her 59.18.

Jen Brenes '09 took .13 seconds off her preliminary time in the 55 meter hurdles to garner fourth place. Her final time was 8.64. She also competed in the long jump. Despite fouling twice, her clean jump yielded a distance of 4.5 meters.

The two seniors at the meet both ran middle distances, with Beth Butler '07 racing to second place in the 800-meter and Kara Plunkett '07 finishing 18th in the 1000. Butler's time was 2:18.71, Plunkett's was 3:10.12.

In team scoring, Midd was ninth out of 21 teams, posting 30 points. Perennial powerhouse Williams won seven events and the meet with 151 points, 42 points ahead of Tufts.

The Middlebury men entered three events at the meet. Pat Sedney '08 was 12th in the pole vault with a jump of 3.81 meters. Adam Haggerty of Southern Maine posted the high for the day with his 4.57-meters.

Midd's distance medley A team was ninth after running the 400-meter, 800-meter, 1200-meter and 1600-meter legs in 10:53.59. They came in on the heels of Tufts in a tight battle for the final scoring slot, but missed it by about four seconds. MIT posted a 10:32.63 to win the event.

Captain Pascal Losambe '07 delivered the men's only points of the day in the shot put, beating out Springfield's Dan Hall to place eighth with a throw of 14.31 meters. Hall's teammate Alex Kampersal's winning mark was 15.48 meters.On the men's side, just like with the women, Williams was the team to beat in nearly every event, and they were victorious with 152 points. Tufts followed with 103.

Middlebury will next compete in the Open New England Championships at Boston University. Their sights, however, are firmly set a little further down the road, on the NESCAC outdoor championships they will host on April 28. Beatty has made it clear since the start of the season that the team's competition goals essentially boil down to that meet.