Indoor Track and Field Teams Compete in D3 New England's

Both the men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams travelled to Division III New England’s. The men finished ninth out of 21 teams at fellow NESCAC school Bates while the women finished fourth out of 23 teams at Southern Maine University.

Several athletes won events for the College, fulfilling hopes that had been set in place as early as September as tri-captain Sarah O’Brien ’13 commented on before the competition this past weekend.

“The majority of the team has been training hard since early in the fall, and all of this hard work has prepared us to perform well in the upcoming championship meets,” said O’Brien. “It’s fun to get to the big meets with good competition and watch our team’s hard work pay off.”

O’Brien personally saw her hopes realized as she was part of the winning 4x800 meter relay along with Addie Tousley ’13, Sarah Guth ’15, and Alison Maxwell ’15. The four Panther women finished the race in a time of 9.29.71, a full four seconds ahead of the second place team from Tufts.

Tousley also won the mile event, finishing in a time of 4:54.15. Fellow distance runner, Juliet Ryan-Davis impressed in the 800 meter run finishing first with a time of 2:11.36 smashing the DIII record by two seconds as well as setting a new school record. Davis also crushed her competition as she finished a full 6 seconds ahead of second place finisher Maggie Fitter from Keene State.

While these first place finishes definitely contributed to the fourth place finish for the women, the team’s depth, shown through several top eight finishes, really propelled the team to their high finishing spot. Only the top eight finishers in each event can score points for the team, thus making every top eight finish important for the school’s overall score. Adding to the impressive nature of the team’s finish was the fact that the team had fewer athletes competing in comparison to other colleges.

“We were really pleased with the women’s team’s performance,” said O’Brien. “We had a fairly small number of athletes competing and still managed to score a lot of points and place well in the team standings overall.”

Alex Morris ’16 finished seventh in the 400-meter dash during her first championship meet for the Panthers with a time of 59.59. Morris was also part of the record setting 4x400 meter relay team with fellow first year runners Halle Gustafson ’16 and Olivia Artaiz ’16 and Ryan-Davis. The team finished in eighth with a time of 12:42.47, setting another new school record.

Distance runners Caroline Guiot ’16, Katie Carlson ’15 and O’Brien all earned top eight finishes in their events as Guiot finished second in the 3,000 meter while Carlson finished eighth in the same event. O’Brien finished fourth in the 1,000 meter with a time of 3:00.61. Also finishing fourth was high jump star Grace Doering ’13, jumping to a height of 5’4.25”.

While the men’s team did not place as high as the women, they also earned several top finishes while competing at Bates College. The team’s highest finish came in the Distance Medley Relay. The team of Fritz Parker ’15, Wilder Schaaf ’14, Patrick Hebble ’13, and Jack Davies ’13 finished second overall in a time of 10:14.71. Both the College’s team as well as the first place team from Bowdoin convincingly broke the meet record, which had previously been held by Williams College with a time of 10:17.06.

The male distance runners continued to show their prowess as both Anthony Lee ’13 and Kevin Wood ’15 finished in the top eight in the 3,000 meter run. Lee ran to third place with a time of 8:35.20 while Wood placed fourth after finishing just over a second after Lee with a time of 8:36.35.

Standout sprinter Brian Holtzman ’14 finished in eighth place in the 60 meter dash in a time of 7.14 seconds. Fellow sprinter Peter Hetzler ’14 came in sixth place after finishing the 400 meter dash in 50.75 seconds. Hetzler only finished .5 seconds after the first place runner, and was able to edge out Derek Barnes from MIT by .01 seconds for sixth place.

Rounding out the top finishes for the men, was the 4x800 meter relay team, comprised of Sam Cartwright ’16, Lucas Carpinello ’16, Will Gibbons ’13 and Sam Craft ’14. The team ran the relay in 8:06.57 finishing in eighth place just .20 seconds ahead of Emmanuel College.

“The team really came together this weekend to support each other and perform well, which gives us great momentum heading into the rest of the championship season and into outdoor track,” said O’Brien.

Several athletes will now go on to compete at the Open New England Championships this Saturday Feb. 22 at Boston University.