Indoor track opens season at Dartmouth

Author: James Schwerdtman

The Middlebury track team traveled to Dartmouth this past weekend for the 40th annual Dartmouth Relays. The Dartmouth Relays attract schools from all over New England and Canada, and even some running clubs and schools as far as Wheaton.

The Relays were not only the first meet of the indoor season for the Panthers, but also the first for many of these athletes in a Middlebury uniform. This year's team is very young, with high numbers of first-years and sophomores.

The relays focused mainly on running and jumping events, so some throwers were not able to attend. Only about half of the team competed over the weekend, with many still training or recovering from injuries.

The NESCAC does not organize any official meets for the indoor season, so the competitions Middlebury enters, much like the Dartmouth Relays, are larger events with bigger, typically Division I programs.

Nevertheless, there were many impressive performances and the Panthers were able to come away with a few points for both the men and the women.

"We looked pretty good today," said Ben Fowler '09. "We had a lot of first year runners out here today and there were a lot of very good performances. I'm proud of how we're coming together as a team."

The strong performances that Fowler was quick to point out came from Addison Godine '12, who ran the 800-meter in 2:02, and Max Mackinnon '09, who ran the 3000-meter in 9:22.

A number of jumpers also had strong performances for the Panthers. Robbie Athan '10 and Nick Montello '12 had long jumps of 5.77 and 5.72 meters, respectively, and Adam Dede '11 scored a point for the Panthers with a vault of 3.97 meters in the pole vault.

"It was a good first day," said Doug Mackey '11, who competed in his first meet for the Panthers. "Hopefully we can carry this into next weekend and build on it."

The women had a very similar day to the men, scoring only a few points but giving a number of strong performances. Katy Magill '11 led the Panthers in the 400-meter at 1:01, coming in just ahead of the rest of the women's strong middle-distance core. Captain Kelley Coughlan '09 scored a point with a triple jump of 11.02 meters.

The other point for the women came from the 4x400-meter relay team, made up of Magill, Grace Close '11, Rebecca Fanning '12 and Julia Sisson '12, who came in at 4:13.

This middle-distance group is one of the bright spots on the team, and led primarily by underclassmen, it is a group that is likely to continue coming up big for the Panthers in the future.

"We have a lot of depth in the middle distance girls this year," said Close. "We have a good group of girls and we ran well today."

Another bright spot from the weekend was the high number of those who qualified for the Division III New England's.

For the men, Dede qualified in the pole vault, John Montroy '12 in the 60 meter hurdles, and for the women, Coughlan qualified in the triple jump, while Close, Magill, Sisson, Fanning, and Kara Montbleau '12 all qualified in the 400-meter. Mia Martinez '12 qualified in the 60-meter hurdles and Allison Astolfi '11 qualified in the long jump.