This past weekend, on Saturday April 22 and Sunday April 23, the Brandeis Judges’ men’s and women’s track team traveled to the University of Chicago to compete in the 2023 University Athletic Association (UAA) championships. The competition on April 22 was a qualifying round, where some athletes could progress to the finals which took place on April 23.
On Saturday, the Judges’ women’s team had two athletes advance to the finals: Alya Campbell ’24 and Liz Korn ’24. Additionally, Smiley Huynh ’24, Kyra Au ’25, Shaniece Nugent ’26, Emma Liu ’26, Kate Hurlbert ’25, Diane Meyer ’26 and the team of Victoria Morrongiello ’23, Ella Warkentine ’26, Bridget Pickard ’23 and Kayla DiBenedetto ’25 all scored in their events.
Korn’s time of 1:00:05 in the 400-meter dash and Campbell’s time of 15.28 in the 100-meter hurdles allowed both of them to carve a path to the finals. Huynh competed in the pole vault and obtained a height of 3.25 meters, good for fifth place. She also got 11th place in the long jump with a distance of 4.87 meters. Au finished seventh in the 3000-meter steeplechase with a time of 13:03.99, a new personal record. Nugent finished eighth in the long jump with a distance of 5.12 meters. Liu placed 18th in the hammer throw with a distance of 37.39 meters, Hurlbert placed 20th in the same event with a distance of 32.39 meters and Meyer’s distance of 31.45 meters (a new personal record) was good for 21st place. Additionally, the 4×800-meter relay team of Morrongiello, Warkentine, Pickard and DiBenedetto placed seventh after finishing with a time of 10:02.05.
The men’s team also had two members advance to finals on Saturday: Dion Morris-Evans ’23 and TJ Carleo ’26. Athletes Artemis Reynolds ’23, Jonathan Hau ’23, Cam Peirce ’25, Caleb Sharif ’26, Lucas Dia ’25, Dashiell Janicki ’25 and the team of Willem Goff ’24, Henry Nguyen ’24, Taylor Diamond ’23 and Dylan Zhao ’26 also scored in their events.
Morris-Evans’ fifth-place finish in the 110-meter hurdle prelims with a time of 15.74 seconds was able to land him a place in the finals. TJ Showstead ’26 also competed in this event, setting a personal record of 16.75 seconds, though just missing the finals qualification with a ninth-place finish. Also moving on to finals was Carleo with a time of 1:54.31 in the 800-meter run, finishing in fourth place. Morris-Evans also competed in the long jump, finishing sixth with a distance of 6.50 meters—just shy of his previous record of 6.51 meters. Reynolds finished sixth in the hammer throw with a distance of 42.05 meters, a massive improvement from their previous record of 40.46 meters. Hau also competed in this category, finishing 13th with a distance of 35.39 meters. Peirce and Sharif competed in the shot put, finishing seventh with a distance of 12.66 meters and 12th at 10.87 meters respectively. The team of Goff, Nguyen, Diamond and Zhao finished seventh in the 4×800-meter relay with a time of 8:19.30. Personal records were broken in the 3000-meter steeplechase event, with Dia finishing 10th with a time of 9:57.98, beating his previous record by over six seconds. Janicki finished 12th in the event with a new personal record of 10:08.59.
In the finals on Sunday, the Judges’ women’s team competed again. Korn finished fourth in the 400-meter dash with a time of 59.05 seconds, a new personal record that was just 1.13 seconds out of All-UAA position. Campbell ran a 15.24 in the 100-meter hurdles, good for sixth place. Nugent placed fifth in the triple jump after leaping 10.88 meters. In the 4×400-meter relay, Korn, Morrongiello, Devin Hiltunen ’23 and Hannah Bohbot-Dridi ’25 ran a 4:06.20, good for fifth place and the Judges’ fastest time this season. In the 4×100-meter relay Campbell, Nugent, Huynh and Hiltunen finished sixth after running the relay in 50.84 seconds. Additionally, Kirsten Man ’25 took eighth place in the high jump, with a height of 1.47 meters. Olivia Zarzycki ’24 also had a height of 1.47 meters, but she finished ninth due to mistakes in earlier rounds.
On the men’s side, Carleo gave an impressive performance in the 800-meter dash final, taking first place with a personal record of 1:51.98. With this, Carleo holds the top three performances for the Judges as well as the second-fastest time in the UAA, both for this season. He now holds the 20th rank in Division III in his event—now sitting at the cusp of qualification for the National Collegiate Athletics Association Championship—and makes history by being the Judges’ first 800-meter champion outdoors since Chris Brown ’12 in 2012. In the javelin throw, Adam Rieden ’26 finished fourth with a distance of 47.58 meters—close to achieving All-UAA honors—and Hau was seventh with a personal record of 45.22 meters. Reynolds continued to perform strongly in the discus throw with a seventh-place finish at a distance of 38.77 meters, with Hau placing 11th with a new personal record of 37.58 meters. Morris-Evans finished sixth in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 15.88 seconds while Ori Slotky ’24 placed eighth in the 400-meter hurdles finals with a time of 57.66 seconds. The team of Jordan Colon ’25, Danny Krigman ’25, Leo Schiappa ’26 and Matthew Yue ’26 placed seventh in the 4×100 relay with a time of 44.10 seconds while the team of Carleo, Morris-Evans, Slotky and Samuel Kim ’24 placed seventh as well in the 4×400 relay with a time of 3:30.53.
Next, the Judges will stay in Massachusetts and travel to the University of Massachusetts Amherst to compete in the Championship Tune-Up Meet.
Editor’s Note: Editor-in-Chief Victoria Morrongiello, Deputy Sports Editor Calli Morvay and Layout Editor Erik Lopez did not contribute to the writing or editing of this article.
