Courtsey of Brian Beard

This past weekend, the track and field teams headed to Wesleyan University to compete in the NESCAC championship meet, with both the men’s and women’s teams taking fifth place overall. The Polar Bears took home three NESCAC championship titles, with Kane Demers ’26 winning the 110m hurdles, Charlotte Hodge ’25 winning the pole vault and Mardy Novak ’27 winning the NESCAC javelin title.

According to Hodge, the NESCAC meet is a culmination of the work that she and her teammates put in throughout the course of the season.

“NESCAC is our big meet of the outdoor season, and so, we really try and make it really exciting. All of our training is geared toward peaking at NESCACs, ” Hodge said. “It’s generally a really fun but also competitive atmosphere.”

As a senior approaching the end of her Bowdoin track and field career, Hodge has prioritized  both hard work and enjoying the process of competing. She also reflected on how her pre-meet rituals have changed over the course of her time at Bowdoin.

“I [used to] have a really strict routine. I would have a lot of superstitions, and I would listen to a certain playlist,” Hodge said. “But now—especially in the last meet—I try to just go into it with an open mindset.… I just try and keep it a little bit more fun, a little bit more lighthearted and really be in the moment.”

Furthermore, Hodge emphasized the community that she has built with athletes from other NESCAC schools.

“With the NESCAC pole vault … it’s the same girls I’ve been competing with for the past four years and to get to [win the pole vaulting title] with them was really fun,” Hodge  said. “It’s also very competitive, so it’s fun to be with all of them, and then also [it’s] just really rewarding to be able to see all of the hard work pay off in the end.”

Demers was also able to see his hard work pay off, earning not only the hurdles NESCAC title with a time of 14.82 seconds but also sixth-place finishes in both the 200m and the long jump. He attributed his ability to successfully compete in four events to wisely managing his energy and turning his focus to one event at a time.

“There’s something that my mom always used to tell me—I did a lot of events in high school, too—and she would ask me, ‘How do you eat an elephant?’ And she would say, ‘You eat it one bite at a time,’” Demers said. “[You] may have four events, but you take each one as they come, and you do your best, and then you move on, and you try not to think about the past.”

Similar to the sentiments Hodge shared, Demers also emphasized the sense of community at larger meets such as NESCACs.

“I think it’s one of those moments where it’s bigger than yourself, it’s for a greater cause like the team,” Demers said. “I still don’t think I’m perfect at [doing four events], but it’s less about running this mark or jumping this far and more about how much I can score for the bigger collective.”

Assistant Coach Marcques Houston also noticed the meaningful ways in which the Polar Bears supported each other throughout the day even in poor weather conditions that were less than ideal for many athletes.

“Everybody showed up for each other. I think this whole season has been an exercise in resilience. The weather hasn’t really been on our side, and for a lot of people, NESCACs was the last meet of their season, so seeing everyone come together and sort of rally around each other regardless of the weather and just put it all out there was a lot of fun,” Houston said.

Many other Polar Bears had top five finishes, including Oliver Brandes ’27, who took second in  the 800m dash. Despite feeling nervous, Brandes was able to add eight points to the men’s overall total of 70.5 points.

“I was really anxious going into [the race], but at the end of the day, I really wanted to show that Bowdoin track and field is serious, and we’re here at the NESCAC to score some points and do some damage,” Brandes said.

After a neck-and-neck race with an Amherst runner, Brandes still finished with a time of 1:50.62, which qualified him for the New England Division III Championship.

“I thought I had the race going into the final stretch, it was really close,… but it was great competition,… and I’m just excited to race again. I’m excited to go toe-to-toe,” Brandes said.