The men's and women's track and field teams roared through Boston last weekend to deliver an impressive display of skill and determination at the IC4A Championships for the men and the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships for the women. Four male runners emerged from the competition with personal best times, while the women's relay team fell just short of breaking the school record set by an All-American Brown team two years ago.
The men performed strongly in the individual races on Sunday, with outstanding performances from some of the younger members of the distance squad. Duriel Hardy '10, Colin Brett '10 and Ari Zamir '08 all spurred each other on in the 3000-meter race, remaining neck-and-neck throughout and all scoring personal best times as a result. Hardy crossed the finish line in 10th place with a time of 8:17.93, while Brett and Zamir battled it out for 17th and 18th, with Zamir coming out on top with a time of 8:19.25, just ahead of Brett's 8:19.37 time.
"Hardy and Brett demonstrated that the future is bright for the men's distance program as they set personal bests in the 3k along with senior Ari Zamir," said Head Coach Craig Lake.
In the middle distance events, Nick Sarro '08 performed well, running a time of 4:20.79 in the mile, and Sean O'Brien '09 emerged from the 800 with a time of 1:52.90, matching Sarro's 18th place finish. The star of the day, however, was Matthew Jasmin '09, who came out of the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 7.60 to earn him 10th place, which was just short of qualifying for the final race. Andrew Chapin '10, the only jumper to travel to Boston on the men's team this weekend, came out of the triple jump event in 19th place with a jump of 13.98 meters.
The women pulled out an impressive display in the distance-medley relay at the highly competitive ECAC Championships. Their time ranked them at 17th in the nation, just shy of qualifying for the NCAA National Championships. The relay consists of a 1200-meter leadoff leg followed by a 400-meter leg, an 800-meter leg and a 1600-meter anchor leg. The team consisted of Kesley Ramsay '11 running the 1200, Nicole Burns '09 running the 400, Samantha Adelberg '11 running the 800 and Smita Gupta '08 anchoring with the 1600. While all members performed well, with both freshmen earning personal bests, it was Gupta who really shone as the team's anchor. She ran a split equal to the one run by the anchor on Brown's 2006 team, which set the school record. Their overall time was 11:16.83 in comparison to the 2006 record time of 11:15.90.
"The ECACs went extremely well - especially for the women's Distance Medley relay team," Lake said. "We were one second shy of breaking the school record set by the All-American team from two years ago. Smita Gupta's anchor leg in the 1600-meter was extremely impressive. She ran a 4:41 anchor leg which is a huge personal best."
The female jumpers also excelled in their events, with high jumpers Grace Watson '11 and Natasha Smith '11 both earning heights of 5-05.00 feet and tying for 11th place. Tiffany Chang '08 placed ninth in the pole vault with a height of 11-11.75 feet. Akilah King '08 rounded out a solid team showing, pulling out a 38-06.25-foot jump to earn 13th place in the triple jump.
The women and men will both have another opportunity to display their prowess, this time outdoors, on March 22 at the Husky Spring Open at Northeastern University.
"I think we finished (the indoor season) pretty solidly," Chapin said. "There were a lot of great performances at Heps a few weekends ago so we're looking good for the start of the outdoor season."
