After miserable conditions the previous week at the Aloha Relays, the women's track team excelled in more favorable conditions at the NESCAC Championships, held at Tufts University last Saturday.
"Last Saturday at Tufts was like Halloween, Christmas, and my birthday all at once," said sophomore Elsa Millett. "A great day to be an athlete on the Bowdoin track team."
The Polar Bears broke four school records with several strong performances on the track.
Millett, who had a breakthrough week, led the Polar Bears in the sprints. She broke her own school records in the 200-meter dash and the 400-meter dash. She was the NESCAC champion in the 400-meter dash, with a time of 57.48 seconds. In the 200-meter, she clocked a time of 25.31 seconds, good enough for second place in the NESCAC.
In addition to her solo performances, Millett was part of the school-record breaking 4x100-meter relay team, along with Emily Barr '12, Michelle Kaufman '12 and Christine Head '11. The team broke a ten-year-old school record and finished second in the conference with a time of 48.97 seconds.
In the distances, sophomore Anna Ackerman had an exceptional performance in the steeplechase. The steeplechase is a 3,000-meter race, which includes four wooden barriers each lap the runners must jump over, as well as a fifth barrier, which has a 12-foot long water barrier behind it.
Ackerman described her strategy for the race.
"[Senior Lindsey] Hodge and I went out with a strategy to stay in ninth place for the first three laps," she said. "I felt good after the first mile and started picking off places. With the fifth place girl in front of me and one water hurdle to go, I started to kick."
Ackerman was able to push ahead and finish in a time of 10 minutes, 36 seconds, enough to break the current school record.
Head Coach Peter Slovenski said he was impressed with the impressive performances.
"Breaking four school records in one meet is a terrific team effort. Everyone worked hard to prepare, and then called on everything they had in the competition."
Slovenski also applauded the efforts of sophomore thrower Gina Lonati, who had an outstanding meet.
"Gina is a very cool competitor," he said. "When she gets to the important competitions she surprises her opponents with personal records."
With such strong performances by so many athletes at the NESCAC Championships, the Bowdoin women are looking forward to this weekend's New England Division III Championships, which will also take place at Tufts University.
Millett said she is confident the Polar Bears will rise to the occasion.
She said, "I'm anticipating some great déjà vu at Tufts this weekend and even stronger performances to match the fiercer competition."