The women's track team remains confident in its chances of finishing in the top three teams at this weekend's NESCAC Championship, given its defeat of two of the conference teams, Colby and Bates, at the Aloha Relays last weekend.
This was the 21st Aloha Relays, which draws schools from across the state as well as Mt. Holyoke and Smith Colleges. The Polar Bears won the meet handily, eclipsing Bates' 150 points and Colby's 123 points with a total score of 244.
Highlighting the day were two record performances. Chris Head '11 jumped a height of 10'2" in the pole vault, setting a Bowdoin record in the outdoor pole vault and taking third in the event. Last year, Head also set the indoor vault record with a jump of 10'6".
Continuing her stellar transition from indoor to outdoor track, Ali Chase '09 set a meet record in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:15.63, besting Colby's Emma Linhard by over two seconds with a kick in the final 200 meters. Bowdoin took four of the top five spots in the 800-meter run, with Molly Duffy '11, Grace Kerr '11, and Alex Peacock-Villada '11 taking third, fourth, and fifth, respectively.
"I found the open 800-meter run inspirational," said quad-captain Alison Pilon '09. "It was so telling of the depth we have on this team right now."
The Bears garnered many other victories throughout the day, with Laura Peterson '12 winning the long jump and the triple jump, and classmate Elsa Millet '12 taking first in the 200- and 400-meter dashes.
Other first-place finishes included Emily Barr '12 in the 100-meter dash, Courtney Martin '09 in the 10-kilometer run, Anna Ackerman '12 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, and Kelsey Borner '09 in the javelin.
The team of Barr, Haley MacKeil '10, Molly Seaward '09, and Hannah Peckler '11 had a decisive victory in the 4 x 100-meter relay, finishing .52 seconds ahead of the second place team from Smith.
The 4 x 800-meter relay team Peacock-Villada, Kerr, Lindsey Schickner '09, and Jess Sokolow '09 nabbed a first place finish as well, edging out the Colby team by just over a second.
So while a decisive victory and a sunny day left the Bears reassured of their depth and talent after the Aloha Relays, the women are preparing to fry bigger fish this weekend at Connecticut College, where the NESCAC Championship will draw some of the top schools in the region.
Bowdoin finished sixth at the 2008 championship, but the team is setting its sights on a top-three finish this year, with Middlebury, Williams, and Tufts posing the largest challenge. Williams and Tufts took second and third at the indoor Division III New England Regional Championship two months ago, a meet that Bowdoin took fourth in.
"NESCACs will bring some very fierce competition," said Borner, "and it will be our goal to beat Tufts and Middlebury to move into the top two or three teams in the conference. We'll need people to get points wherever they can, especially moving up from 11th, 10th, and ninth place seeds into the top eight scoring positions."
"The competition will be steep," Pilon said, "but we definitely have a thing or two to show the other teams in the league...I think that if everyone starts peaking the way we are planning then we'll be able to achieve that."