The women's indoor track team looks to gather personal bests, school records, and NCAA qualification standards this weekend at the Open New England's Championship at Boston University.
This past weekend, the Bears finished fourth of 24 teams in what proved a competitive Division III New England Regional Championship meet at Farley Field House, and the 25 NCAA qualifying performances they saw on their home turf will inspire them to reach for those standards this Friday and Saturday.
MIT left Farley this past Saturday as Division III New England Champions, scoring a total of 134 points, followed by Wiliams in second with 118 points, and then Tufts in third with 108 points.
The Bears scored 88 points, four points more than they had been seeded to receive. While Bowdoin had its sights set on a top three finish at D-III New England's this year, the exceptional competition and outstanding individual performances of so many competitors satisfied the Bears with their finish.
"Even though we were aiming for third, our fourth place finish feels good," said tri-captain Alison Pilon '09. "The scoreboard didn't necessarily reflect all the awesome performances we had. We did really well, but so did some of the other teams."
One such exceptional performance was that of first year triple and long jump star Laura Peterson '12, whose fourth-place finish in the triple jump met NCAA provisional qualifying standards, and ranks her eighth nationally. The 37'11.25" jump broke a seven-year-old school record by over a foot.
"On Laura's final triple jump effort she had great speed into her first phase, and then lots of power into her second phase, and the speed and power combined in her third phase...and lifted [her] off into flight," said Coach Slovenski. "She floated over the sand and landed with a wonderful jump."
Ali Chase '09 pushed passed two people in the last 100-meter leg of the 600-meter run to post Bowdoin's only first place finish of the day. Runners-up included Annie Monjar '09 in the 3,000 meter run, and the 4 x 800-meter relay team of Dana Riker '10, Molly Duffy '11, Jess Sokolow '09, and Chase as anchor.
Competitors improved on seeds throughout the day, collecting unforeseen points for the team score. Christine Head '11 finished fifth overall in the pole vault, while Sokolow also exceeded her seed with a fifth-place finish in the 800-meter run.
Kelsey Borner '09 took third in the weight throw, and Shemeica Binns '09 took fourth in the shot put. Elsa Millet '12 took third in the 400-meter dash and fifth in the 200-meter dash, while classmate Emily Barr '12 took sixth in the 55-meter dash.
"Emily Barr has had a phenomenal year in the dash for our team," said Slovenski. "Her time of 7.49 was a highlight of the day, and very close to the school record."
"We had several performances that moved us ahead of our seeded positions, and we had several performances that missed adding more points by inches and tenths of a second," Slovenski said. "Nothing was missed without supreme effort."
These efforts will continue into this weekend, when the athletes will travel for the second time this season to Boston University's Track & Tennis Center, where a banked track, extra Division I competition, and well-tapered athletes typically result in some of the season's best performances.