Last weekend, the Brandeis men’s and women’s track and field teams traveled to Maine to compete at the Bowdoin Invitational. Both teams finished the meet in fifth place; the women’s team scored a total of 40 points, while the men’s team finished with 39 points. 

The 4×200 meter relay team made up of Anna Touitou ’22, Tessa Holleran ’21, Sonali Anderson ’22 and anchor Sydney D’Ammadio ’23 helped the Judges to their only victory of the meet. The relay team finished the race in 1:50.93, a full second faster than the second place finishers from Colby College. 

Devin Hiltunen ’22 added points to the Judges’ total with a fourth and fifth place finish in the 200-meter dash and the 60-meter dash respectively. Hiltunen finished the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.84 seconds, just under three-tenths of a second behind the third place finisher. She also ran a personal record (PR) in the 60-meter dash with a time of 8.21 seconds. 

Touitou finished ninth in the preliminaries in the 60-meter dash, two-hundredths of a second behind qualifying for the finals, finishing with a time of 8.31 seconds. D’Ammadio and Touitou also placed seventh and eighth in the 200-meter dash, with times of 27.54 seconds and 27.85 seconds respectively.

Leinni Valdez ’21 and rookie Victoria Morrongiello ’23 finished second and fourth in the 600-meter dash respectively, further adding points to the Judges’ total. Valdez finished with a time of 1:43.20, just 1.85 seconds slower than the first place finisher, Samantha LiPetri from Merrimack College. Morrongiello finished with a time of 1:44.40.

Moving onto the 800-meter dash, Taylor Kane ’22 finished in fifth place with a time of 2:37.45. Kane was just under two seconds behind the fourth place finisher from Bowdoin College. Classmate Natalie Hattan ’22 ran a PR in the 1000-meter run with a time of 3:12.34 and finished in fifth place. Rookie Bridget Pickard ’23 finished seventh in the 1000-meter run with a time of 3:17.64. Kate Danziger ’22 finished in fourth in the 3000-meter run with a time of 10:55.03. 

In the final event of the day, the Judges finished fourth in the 4 x 400 meter relay with a time of 4:31.73. Valdez started the race, followed by Morrongiello, Kane and anchored by Mahala Lavis ’21. 

On the field side, Willa Moen ’20 and Holleran placed ninth and tenth in the 60 meter hurdles preliminaries with times of 10.17 and 10.31 seconds, respectively. Moen missed out on qualifying for finals by two-tenths of a second. Moen also placed seventh in long jump with a distance of 4.42 meters.

On the men’s side, field athletes contributed the most points to the team’s total. Aaron Corin ’20, Breylen Ammen ’21 and Jack Allan ’20 finished third, fifth and sixth place in pole vault, respectively. Corin finished at a height of 4.25 meters, Ammen at 4.10 meters and Allan at 3.65 meters. Corin and Ammen’s markers were both season-bests. 

Allan also scored in the long jump with a distance of 6.30 meters, good for sixth place. Teammate Michael Leung ’21 finished in ninth with a distance of 5.90 meters and Kevin Truong ’21 finished in 12th with a distance of 5.55 meters. 

Allan finished third in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.70 seconds. Teammate Aaron Baublis ’21 finished fifth with a time of 9.01 seconds. 

The Judges also had multiple scorers in distance races. In the 800-meter, Jacob Grant ’22 placed third with a time of 2:03:18, while rookie Siva Annadorai ’23 finished five seconds later with a time of 2:07.25, good for fifth place. In the 1000-meter run, Jacob Judd (GRAD) and Alec Rodgers ’20 finished fourth and sixth with times of 2:36.65 and 2:37.72, respectively. 

Lorenzo Maddox ’20 finished sixth in the finals of the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.26 seconds after placing fourth in the preliminaries. Thomas Vandalovsky ’23 also placed sixth in the shot put, throwing a distance of 12.77 meters. Vandalovsky placed ninth in weight throw with a distance of 10.65 meters. 

The Judges also placed third in the 4 x 400 meter relay with a time of 3:35.48. The team consisted of Aaron Portman ’22, Dean Campbell ’23, Judd and Grant. 

The Judges will return to action this weekend at the Boston University Terrier Classic and the Art Farnham Invitational at MIT on Friday, Jan. 24 and Saturday, Jan. 25. 

Editor’s note: Deputy News Editor Victoria Morrongiello is a part of the women’s track and field team.