The men’s and women’s outdoor track and field teams finished their invitational season with the Sean Collier Invitational hosted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA.
The men’s track and field team gave a fantastic performance at the invitational. Graduate student Irie Gourde ’17 led the outstanding performances with a school record in the 200m race. Gourde finished with a time of 21.59 seconds, which was almost .10 seconds less than his previous personal best. Gourde also earned a personal best in the 100m dash with a time of 10.96 seconds. Both of these times qualify Gourde for the Division III New England Championships.
Regan Charie ’19 also gave a personal best performance for the season this weekend, finishing second in the 100m race with a time of 11.15 seconds. Charie was also part of the 4x100m relay team that earned second place at the invitational with a time of 43.30. The team was made up of Charie, Lorenzo Maddox ’20, Jacob Ward ’21 and Churchill Perry ’20 whose second place finish was a season best for the group.
In the men’s distance events, Ryan Stender ’18 stood out for the Judges, winning in the 5000m with a time of 15:17.50. He earned a DIII New England qualifying time in his first meet of the outdoor season after suffering minor injuries during the first part of the outdoor season.
For the men’s field events, a number of Judges also earned DIII New England qualifying times. Scott Grote ’19 earned a six-foot personal best and second place in discus with a distance of 45.86m. Perry also earned an individual second-place finish in the triple jump with a distance of 13.56m. Aaron Corin ’20 finished off qualifiers from the men’s team with a third place pole vault of 4.25m. This vault was only one centimeter off his personal best, set last year.
In the women’s events, the DIII New England qualifiers came from the mid-distance runners. In the 800m event three athletes qualified: Doyin Ogundiran ’19 finished third with a time of 2:16.80, Lisbeth Valdez ’21 finished seventh for the Judges running a 2:20.47 and her twin sister, Leinni Valdez ’21, came in 11th in 2:21.48.
Three Judges gave top performances in the 1500m event. Meaghan Barry ’19 finished fifth with a time of 4:55.34, while Kyra Shreeve ’18 earned a time of 4:53.87 to put her in fourth place. The only runner to qualify for the DIII New England Championships in the 1500m race was Julia Bryson ’19, who snatched the first place spot with a time of 4:47.44.
Two other Judges qualified for the DIII New England championships as well. Lydia Harris ’20 recorded a personal best and won the 400m hurdles with a time of 68.87 seconds. Kanya Brown ’19 also gave a personal best of 12.87 seconds in the 100m race, finishing in seventh place.
Those who qualified at this past weekend’s Sean Collier Invitational will compete this weekend in the University Athletic Association Outdoor Championship hosted by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA. The tournament will run from Saturday, April 28 to Sunday, April 29.
