The women's indoor track team placed fifth in the New England D-III New England Championships in Massachusetts last Saturday with several impressive individual performances.
The highlights of the meet were Elsa Millett's second-place finish in 200-meter dash, Michele Kaufman's second-place finish in the 55-meter hurdles and Annie Huyler's second-place finish in the shot put.
"Division III New England is always a fun meet because instead of competing for individual times, it is a high competition meet where we compete together for a team score and place," said Emily Barr '12, who finished third in her heat for the 55-yard dash.
The team's main goal was to finish the meet in the top five.
"We were aiming for top five and it was very rewarding to achieve that," Barr said. "When you know you are competing for a team score, every individual place matters, which definitely adds to the adrenaline of the day. I am really glad we accomplished our goal."
The team had to fight in order to secure fifth place and was even close to fourth. The team was ahead of Middlebury by just 1 point going into the final event.
Coach Peter Slovenski described the last event, the 4x700-meter, as the "most exciting race of the day." Middlebury finished only 3 seconds ahead of the first Bowdoin runner.
"It was wonderful to see so many of my teammates use this adrenaline and greater field of competition to score higher than they were seeded," said Barr.
One of the runners who rose to the competition was Kaufman, who holds the school record.
"Michele is such a great athlete in clutch situations," said Slovenski. "She really rose to the competition running next to an All-American from Wheaton."
The distance runners also made huge contributions to the team's success. Christina Argueta '11 and Olivia McKenzie '13 both ran their personal bests, and Chantal Croteau '12, who was seeded 19th prior the meet in the 1000-meter, placed fifth.
"Chantal had a fantastic meet. She was training in 100 degree weather on the equator in Sri Lanka in November, and it [paid off]," said Slovenski. "She scored in two main events for Bowdoin."
The team will travel to Boston this weekend for the Open New England Championships hosted by Boston University.