The women's track and field team envisions a top-three finish in the Division III New England Regional Championship this Saturday, a goal they set their sights on after last year's championship, when they took seventh overall.
The Bears took fourth place at the NESCAC Championship this past weekend to Williams, Middlebury, and Tufts, putting a third-place finish at the New England Championships within striking range.
With a number of breakthrough performances at NESCACs, however, the women remain optimistic about their chances of achieving the goal.
Not the least of these performances were Bowdoin's two individual champions in the meet.
Elsa Millet '12 took first in the 400-meter dash with a time of 58.29 seconds, winning the race by over half a second. Millet also picked up a third-place finish in the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.08 seconds.
Millet's performance testifies to the remarkable amount of talent in the team's first years, quad-captain Alison Pilon '09 said.
"It has been a true pleasure to have [Millet] and other talented first years join the team this year," she said. "I felt like watching her win reaffirmed how much this year's new members have contributed to our team effort and dynamic."
Riding the momentum it has maintained all season, the team's senior throwers both had stellar finishes, with quad-captain Kelsey Borner '09 earning a victory in the discus with a throw of 42.24 meters.
Borner also took second in the javelin throw, where her distance of 38.95 meters qualifies her provisionally for the NCAA Championship.
The 4 x 800-meter relay team of Grace Kerr '11, Dana Riker '10, Jess Sokolow '09, and Ali Chase '09 took second overall with a total time of 9:24.74, just one second off the Bowdoin school record.
Despite wanting a top-three finish at both NESCACs and New England D-IIIs this year, the Bears are looking forward to another shot at that goal this weekend.
"D-IIIs is the biggest meet of the year for our team," Riker said. "The seeds shift around a little bit between NESCACs and D-IIIs as some other schools join the competition, and we have a strong enough team this year to use that to our advantage and sneak past Williams, Tufts, Middlebury, or MIT.
The Bears will travel to Springfield College this weekend, where they will take on nearly 25 other New England teams to gun for the top-three finish they've been waiting for all season.