In a highly competitive Open New England Championships meet, which featured over 70 teams from all three collegiate divisions, the Middlebury track and field team continued to post the type of numbers that should allow them to finish their indoor season very successfully over the next two weeks. Although the events were run on a banked track (which allows for slightly faster times in many events), many of the Panther times landed them on the national DIII leaderboard even after they had been adjusted. Out of 32 scoring teams, the women finished 20th; the men came in 31st out of 36.
Alex Nichols ’17, who anchored the 4x400 quartet that finished third and garnered All-New England honors, spoke briefly about the different atmosphere at the larger meet.
“The biggest difference with Open meets is that they are just a lot bigger,” he said. “ The crowd can be pretty huge and
enthusiastic, the building is louder and there are so many athletes that events become more competitive. When you compete at a smaller meet, there’s a chance that any given event won’t be particularly intense that day, but with so many people at an Open meet you always know that the people racing, jumping or throwing against you will be fierce competition, and that really adds an electricity that makes you want to do well.”
Many of the Panther athletes had no problem matching that higher intensity. The men’s 4x400 team, made up of Jimmy Martinez ’19, Brandon Cushman ’16, James Mulliken ’18 and Nichols, smashed the previous school record by almost a second (now 3:15.92) and posted the 11th-best time in Division III this year. The women’s 4x400 was just as impressive impressive: Jackie Kearney ’16, Lucy Lang ’19, Paige Fernandez ’17 and anchor Alex Morris ’16 finished sixth overall (first among Division III teams) and set their own school record with a time of 3:51.28, good for the ninth-fastest time in DIII. Not wanting to miss out on the fun,
the women’s distance medley relay team (Nicole Schachman ’16, Kate McCluskey ’18, Lauren Bougioukas ’16 and Abigail Nadler ’19) posted the fourth fastest DIII time this season, crossing the line fourth in 11:49.92.
In fact, setting records was the name of the game for all the Middlebury athletes at the meet. Nicole Wilkerson, who spends all year with many of the runners as both the cross-country coach and an assistant track coach, was quick to point out how well the team competed across the board. “Everyone that competed this weekend either matched their best performances or ran their personal bests,” she explained. “The energy on the team was high and everyone was really excited to compete: the results reflected that.”
For the men, other notable finishers included Kevin Serrao ’18, who revised his school record in the 800-meter race en route to a 9th place finish with a time of 1:53.14, and Sam Cartwright ’16, whose time of 4:13.45 placed him 10th in the mile. In addition to her contribution to the distance medley relay, Nadler be-
came the first female Panther to break the 10-minute mark in the 3,000-meter race, smashing the old record by almost 10 seconds with a time of 9:58.71.
With Division III championships at Grinnell College in two weeks, most of the athletes who aren’t competing for a qualifying time this weekend will be laying off the gas in order to finish the season as healthy as possible. “Training this week is definitely going to focus more on recovery for a lot of us who are continuing the indoor season,” Nichols said. “ We’ve now hit the point where we’ve had to run some very intense and important races in back to back weeks, and so practice will focus a lot more on being healthy and making sure we feel good as we head into the last couple weeks before what we hope will be a Midd-filled nationals meet.”
Middlebury will be sending a contingent of athletes to compete in the East Coast Athletic Conference Championships on Staten Island this weekend; a handful of others still vying for qualifying times will head down to Tufts for one last opportunity.
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