School records, national qualifiers for Jumbos

For the women's track and field team, the aim of this weekend's All New-England Championships was attaining individual goals. And based on the results, the Jumbos were right on target.

The team traveled across the Charles River to Boston University on Friday and Saturday for the two-day meet, focused on personal, rather than team performance. Tufts came away successful, breaking two school records and receiving two national qualifying times.

Tufts finished 16th with 12.5 points, one place and half a point better than last season. UConn (112) and Boston College (97) dominated the meet, which featured Division I, II and III athletes.

The nation's top Division III 4x400 relay squad of sophomore Rachel Bloom, junior Sika Henry and senior quad-captains Emily Bersin and Jess Trombly smashed its own Tufts record of 3:53.94 seconds by over a second, gaining an automatic national qualification with a third place finish (3:52.82) behind Division I schools URI (3:48.53) and BC (3:50.51). The group will rest at next weekend's ECAC Championships, the final event before nationals.

"We were seeded in a very competitive heat, the only Div. III school in it," Trombly said. "We were kind of confident going into it but expected to be behind. It was very competitive within the race, we didn't let anyone push us around, and had really good handoffs."

The distance medley relay (DMR) team of senior quad-captain Lauren Caputo, sophomores Megan Sears and Rebecca Ades, and freshman Sarah Crispin recorded a national provisional time by finishing seventh in 12:09.75, shaving nearly 12 seconds off its previous season-best.

"We all did really well, Sarah Crispin had an unbelievable 800, a huge PR," Sears said. "We were all really pumped up, it was huge for us. Even though it was a huge PR, we're going to go after it again next weekend to try to cut off a couple more seconds and guarantee a spot at nationals."

The DMR is the sixth Jumbo entry to gain at least provisional national qualifying this season, something Henry believes shows the strength and quality of this year's team.

"We seem to be a better team this year. [Coach] Kristen [Morwick's] coaching has been phenomenal," Henry said. "She's gotten us to peak at the right time, and we've been PR-ing a lot. People are taking it more seriously, and the hard work we've been doing has been paying off."

Caputo (5:12.82) and Ades (5:13.06) both ran the mile in addition to Friday's DMR. Caputo ran her best time of the season while Ades ran a PR, earning a spot at ECACs for her efforts. Caputo -- already an ECAC qualifier in the event -- improved her time by 1.5 seconds.

Trombly also competed in two individual events, breaking her own school record in the 200 dash with a 25.59 second run in qualifying and 25.62 seconds in the finals. Trombly's previous record of 25.75 came at last season's Tufts Stampede.

"I don't run the 200 a lot, so it was pretty competitive," Trombly said. "I just tried to stay close."

She also placed sixth in the 55 hurdles in 8.61 seconds, two tenths of a second off her previous best but good enough for three points towards the team total. Combined with the 4x400, Trombly contributed to nine of the team's 12.5 points.

Henry split points for seventh place in high jump, tying seven other jumpers with 5-03.00 feet but sharing points with just URI's Liz Pugsley because the pair had the fewest missed attempts at lower heights earlier in the event. Both competitors received 1.5 points.

The Jumbos also received strong performances in several other events that did not show up on the scoreboard.

Bersin ran a PR in the 400 heats, breaking the 60-second mark with a 59.60, four tenths of a second better than her previous best. Freshman Kate Makai (1:21.14) also shaved four tenths off her PR in the 500 with a 1:21.14, while classmate Samantha Moland (3:03.97) ran a three second improvement on her best in the 1000 meters. Bloom ran a sub-26 second 200 (25.96) in the preliminaries, narrowly missing a finals berth alongside Trombly.

Due to the impressive individual performances and the support of team members not in uniform, the Jumbos were happy with their performance.

"A lot of it was just team support," Sears said. "Even people not competing were there supporting us, which really pumped us up. We've got a great group of girls."