Last Saturday, the men’s and women’s track and field teams travelled to the University of Southern Maine for the New England Division III Championships, and though the teams managed only a mixed record, a pair of stellar individual performances helped make the Judges proud. The women’s team found the most success, earning 25 points over 21 events in order to finish 10th of the 26 teams competing. The men’s team suffered a more disappointing result, managing only one point and finishing in a tie for 21st.
The highlight for the Brandeis squads was undoubtedly the performance of Grayce Selig ’11, who won the 3,000-meter race to become the New England Regional titleholder. Selig’s time of 10:14.57 was almost three second faster than her closest competitor, earning her 10 points for the Judges. Her performance came less than a week after she became the first woman in Brandeis history to run a sub-five minute mile, recording a time of 4.57.68 at the Valentine’s Day Classic at Boston University on Feb. 15. Selig is now ranked fifth nationally among Division III mile runners.
The Judges scored their first points early, as Lucia Capano’s [‘11] 5.23 meter long jump was enough to place sixth in the third event of the day. Ally Connoly ‘10 earned sixth place in the 5000-meters with a time of 18:21.41. Beth Pisarik ‘10 took sixth in the mile run with 5:06.51, less than a second ahead of teammate Marie Lemay ’11, who grabbed the final point in the event by finishing eighth. Emily Owen ’11 put the Judges on the board for the last time, and her fourth-place time of 2:18.58 in the 800-meters was less than three seconds behind the winner.
All six of the aforementioned athletes won All-New England honors; this is the second time that Selig, Capano, and Lemay have earned that distinction.
The men got their only point from the fleet feet of Alex Kramer ’13, who continued his strong rookie season with an eighth place finish in the mile in 4:20.53. The race was very tightly contested, and Kramer earned the finish and the point by a razor thin margin of .01 second while only losing out on seventh by .02 second. His time was just two-and-a-half seconds away from the first-place finisher.
Marc Boutin ’12 was among those bunched with Kramer, and he had to settle for tenth place with a time of 4:20.58. Brian Foley ’13 showed his great promise for upcoming years by running the 400-meter dash in 52.03, good for 14th, and Mingken Lin ‘12 finished right behind him in 16th. Mik Kern ’13 continued the strong rookie performance by breaking into the top twenty with a 19th place finish in the 1000-meters in 2:38.16. The Judges’ best performance outside of the mile came in the 4×400 meter relay, where the team of Josh Hoffman-Senn ’12, Ned Crowley ’10, Lin and Foley clocked a time of 3:32.33, good for 12th place and just two seconds out of scoring position.
Kramer, however, was Brandeis’s only male athlete to earn a spot on the All-New England list.
The men and the women are back in action again today and tomorrow in the Open New England Championships on the Boston University campus, their last meet before the UAA Championships and then the NCAA Championships in early March.
