Last Saturday, the women's track team traveled to the Connecticut College Invitational to face what head coach Kristen Morwick called, "decent teams." Tufts' squad proved it was better than decent, finishing first in the meet with 151 points. Host Connecticut College finished second with 129 points and Worcester Polytechnic Institute finished third with 81.
Tufts managed to win by placing high in many events and scoring well as a team, rather then relying on individuals.
"We had a lot of event winners which really helped," Morwick said.
By the end of the day, the women's track team had eight first place finishes - in the 800m run, the steeple chase, the 400 hurdles, the 4x100 and 4x400 relays, the pole vault, the triple jump, and the shot put.
Senior co-captain Sarah Deeb added another event to her already enormous repertoire, finishing first in the 800-meter with a time of 2:19.76. With that time, she qualified for the Division I New England meet. Although Deeb was trained as a 400-meter runner, she has enhanced her value to the team by also qualifying for the Division I New England meet in the 100, 200, and 400 races, as well as the 800 race.
"It is nice to be able to move her around and double her and triple her," Mowick said. "It allows us to score a lot of points."
While Deeb excelled in her new event, sophomore Mary Nodine ran the steeplechase event for the first time. The steeplechase is a unique 3,000 event that has five evenly placed hurdles around the 400 track. Each hurdle is the width of the track, making it seem like one bar across the track. One twist to the event is that one of the hurdles is placed in water. Nodine's time was 12:09.19, which was good enough to earn her a school record.
"I guess we did not know what to expect," Morwick said of Nodine.
Hampered by a nagging hamstring injury all season, freshman Jessica Trombly managed to qualify for the Division I New England meet and finish first in the 400-meter race with a time of 1:07.45. Trombly's success was especially noteworthy, as the 400 hurdles are not her main event.
"I feel alright about it; I just have to get used to it," Trombly said.
Finishing directly behind Trombly in this event was fellow freshman Emily Bersin, who ran a time of 1:08.46, good enough for second place in the event, but not fast enough to qualify for Division I New England's.
The 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams proved they are top notch once again as both units finished first in their respective events. Members of the 4x100 relay team include sophomore Myriam Claudio, freshman Shushanna Mignott, Deeb, and Trombly. This was their first time running together because Mignott took over for injured senior Folake Aaron.
Mignott proved to be a good addition, as Tufts not only won the event, but also ran a time of 50.24 seconds - the team's fastest of the season. The 4x400 team seemed equally as impressive as the 4x100 team by finishing first with a time of 4:15.33. The team consists of junior Lauren Esposito, Bersin, Claudio, and Trombly.
Mignott and Claudio appeared to be the most versatile members of the team. Not only did Mignott compete in her usual event, the triple jump, but she also was a member of the winning 4x100 team and ran the 100 dash for the first time.
"Shushanna has a lot of athletic ability," Morwick said.
Mignott finished first in the triple jump with a jump of 10.95 meters and spilt third place in the 100-meter dash as she crossed the finish line neck and neck with her teammate Claudio. The two finished with a time of 13.42 seconds. Claudio was also a part of the 4x100 and 4x400 relay teams and finished first in the pole vault with a vault of 8'06. 00''.
Freshman Kate Gluckman had another excellent day of throwing, finishing first in the shot put and second in the discus. Gluckman threw the shot put 11.84 meters and is now the fourth-ranked shot putter in New England. She threw the discus for a distance of 36.27 meters.
Other good finishes of the day came from senior co-captain Leslie Crofton, who finished second in the 1,500 run with a time of 4:49.61. Senior jumper Nadia Samadani had a jump of 5.07 meters, which was good enough for second place in the long jump. She also finished sixth in the triple jump by jumping 10.43 meters.
"It was a good team meet and good to win the meet," Morwick said.
The NESCACs, which is the last big team meet, is Saturday and Sunday at Wesleyan. According to Morwick, the top competitors at the meet will be Williams, Middlebury, and Colby. Morwick has stressed that this is Tufts' main meet of the year and believes the team can place in the top three.
