The women's indoor track team will head to Boston early Saturday morning to compete in the Greater Boston Track Club Invitational at Harvard, a meet that draws a variety of high-caliber athletes.
Coach Peter Slovenski explained that the invitational is an open meet, where alongside their usual peer competitors, the Polar Bears can expect to face post-collegiate athletes, some of whom might run for track clubs or even be professionally sponsored.
"Our goal is to head in there and really use the faster runners as motivation to pace our races for us and really give us some good speed times for later in the season," said captain Grace Kerr '11, adding that the fast indoor track at Harvard would also aid in clocking fast times.
The women won last Saturday's home meet against Middlebury, Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) with strong showings in individual and relay races.
Slovenski said that the performance on the field was lagging behind a bit at this point in the season, but said that he hoped to see the field athletes "start to get in the rhythm of the schedule" with another week of practice.
Kerr agreed, expressing her hope that tomorrow's meet at Harvard would prove to be "a good time to get faster times, longer throws and higher jumps."
At the meet last Saturday, the Bears tallied a total score of 207.75, comfortably topping Middlebury (139), WPI (108.75) and RPI (94.5).
Emily Barr '12 won the 55-meter dash with a time of 7.74 seconds, though she topped the preliminary heat with a swifter 7.58-second race.
Back at Bowdoin after a semester studying in South Africa, Barr "had a great day in the dashes," said Slovenski.
Kerr won the 800-meter run with a time of 2:26.56, finishing nearly 12 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, Caitlin Rush of WPI.
Fellow captain Christina Argueta won the 3,000-meter run with a similar gap in front of Vicky Hewey of WPI, clocking a 10:35.68 finish.
In the 55-meter hurdles, Michele Kaufman '13 improved her 8.83-second qualifying time to top the field of women's hurdlers with a 8.66-second win in the finals.
The women won three of the day's four relay races, including the 4x200-meter, 4x800-meter and distance medley, continuing what Slovenski characterized as a strong record of women's relays at Bowdoin.
Junior Laura Peterson won the triple jump with a 10.71-meter jump.
Slovenski noted that both Kaufman and Peterson are "national caliber athletes," who have both reached the NCAA qualification standards in the past, saying, "They are among the top track athletes in NESCAC."
He also pointed to the performances of Annie Huyler '12 and Catherine Harmon '14 as particularly helpful toward the team's win.
"[Huyler's] versatility is a big help to the team," he said, noting her five-point-earning finishes in both track and field events.
Harmon earned points with two performances on the field, posting a fourth-place finish in the triple jump and a third-place finish in the 20-pound weight throw. Slovenski emphasized the impressiveness of her performance in the weight throw, because she competed with a lighter weight in high school.
"To be third [in the 20-pound weight throw] in a very competitive varsity meet, that's a great day," he said.