The outdoor season is barely underway, but the women's track and field team appears to be in midseason form, at least considering its results from Saturday's Snowflake Classic.
With a full team competing for the first time this spring, the Jumbos took advantage of some good weather and the home setting at the Ding Dussault Track to deliver a number of notable performances. Leading the way was a pair of underclassmen in sophomore Heather Theiss and freshman Kelly Allen, with each setting a new school record in her respective event.
"It was great," Theiss said. "Just the fact that we were outside and that it was beautiful weather changes everyone's attitude. Everyone came together as a team and was really happy and cheering each other on. I think everyone in general enjoys spring season a little more than winter. You are outside, the sun is out there, and everyone is just having fun and enjoying their sport more."
Both Allen and Theiss had competed already earlier this season. Theiss broke her outdoor personal record (PR) in the pole vault by six inches at the Coastal Carolina Shamrock Invitational over spring break, but she bested that by more than three inches with a mark of 11-9 on Saturday.
"It is an awesome feeling to PR consecutively," Theiss said. "That usually doesn't happen; usually you PR and then kind of taper off a little bit and then maybe PR again or not even at all. So the fact the I PRed twice in one season is an awesome feeling. And the fact that I have a lot of time left makes me feel like I have the chance to PR again."
More importantly, Theiss was well over the provisional qualification mark for NCAAs, as was Allen in the discus. Her 138-foot, 10-inch throw broke a 20-year-old Tufts record and came a week after her victory in the event at the Jerry Gravel Classic.
Sophomore Nakeisha Jones, making her first appearance of the spring after finishing as the runner-up in the triple jump at Nationals in the indoor season, was the third member of the Tufts team to pass a provisional qualifying mark. She won the triple jump with a 37-foot, 9.25-inch leap, short of her best this year but good enough to best teammate junior Kanku Kabongo.
Though the meet was not scored, the Jumbos had two other victories on the day. Allen also placed first in the shot put with a throw of 38-6, while Kabongo added to an impressive day that included the second-place finishes in the triple and long jump by winning the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.62 seconds.
But it was in the field events that the Jumbos seemed to run wild. Sophomore Dayorsha Collins' five-foot, three-inch mark was good enough for second in the high jump behind Brandeis senior captain Suzanne Bernier. Senior Julia Feltus delivered a pair of second-place finishes in the shot put and the hammer throw, while junior Sarah Nolet was the best finisher among seven athletes for Tufts in the javelin with her throw of 114'-6.
"We are really deep in the field events," Theiss said. "But at the same time, we have some pretty good sprinters. I think as long as we keep up [a] good work ethic in practice, we will be able to do well in the season. Same with distance, too; we all have potential, we just need to work a little bit harder in those other areas, and we will see some improvement and some good performances."
But the above athletes were only a part of the large contingent of Jumbos who also delivered second-place finishes on the day. Senior Logan Crane ran to second place in the 100-meter dash with a time of 12.85 seconds in her first event of the outdoor season, while senior co-captain Andrea Ferri was the runner-up in the 400 hurdles.
The 4x4 team of sophomores Kayley Petteruto, Sarah Boudreau, Grace Perry and Lauren Flament, who is also a sports editor for The Daily, finished behind one of two Amherst quartets, but ahead of three other Tufts teams as the Jumbos took advantage of the unique structure of the meet to do a "class relay," with four teams compromised of each individual class year.
"It is always better when your whole team is there cheering you on and supporting you," Ferri said. "We are all in the same heat, so it is a big race, and people who don't usually run 400s are running. So that is really fun, and you can't do that when only half your team is there. It was just great to get on the line and see a sea of blue Tufts uniforms."
With a small numbers of schools making the trip to Somerville and the meet not being scored, the Jumbos were able to get back into the swing of things in a relatively relaxed setting.
"There were not a ton of teams there, so it was a lot more relaxed, and a lot of people do better when they are more relaxed because it is more fun and it is more like a glorified practice," Ferri said. "It was a more fun environment and atmosphere, so that was good."
The Jumbos will have to put their noses to the grindstone now, however, with less than three weeks remaining before the NESCAC Championships, which will be held at Tufts on April 24. Now that the season is truly underway, the Jumbos will look to continue to improve and get situated to the different aspects of the outdoor season as they gear up for championship season.
"I guess getting used to outdoors — it was great weather, but outdoor is just a different thing than indoor," said Ferri when asked about the transition from the winter campaign. "We are focusing on practices and getting better and trying to improve our marks as quickly as we can because the regular season before Championships is very short."
