The women's track and field team competed at two separate locations this past weekend, splitting the squad between the MIT Invitational on Saturday and Boston University's (BU) Terrier Classic on both Friday and Saturday, with most of the women's events taking place on Friday.
While the two meets were technically non-scoring, the Jumbos still managed to earn some personal bests, and, in sophomore Kelly Allen's case, broke a school record.
On Saturday, in her first throw of the day, Allen shattered the Tufts record with a weight throw of 48'. Over the past few weeks Allen has improved every time she has entered the circle. Her focus on increasing her strength and learning proper form and technique is already paying major dividends this season.
"I was definitely trying to go for it, and everyone was pretty excited when I broke the record," Allen said. "The hard thing was that it was my first throw of the day, so I had to keep going afterwards."
The scary part of this story for the rest of the NESCAC is that the weight throw is still relatively new to Allen, meaning she will only move up from here. Every time she has thrown in the event, save twice since her freshman year, Allen has achieved personal bests. And she has been equally impressive in other throwing events, too — in addition to her record-breaking performance in the weight throw, Allen won the shot put on Saturday with a toss of 40'6".
Performances by other Jumbos weren't too shabby either.
At Friday's BU tournament, the Jumbos put together plenty of solid showings to start off the weekend. In the 500 meters, senior Kaylee Maykranz placed 10th overall with a 1:18.65 and sophomore Samantha Bissonnette was 26th in 1:20.55. Senior Amy Wilfert continued to knock time off her mile time, running a 5:02.23 on her way to a 14th place finish.
"[Amy's] race was really exciting to watch, because she was in a really fast heat, so seeing her race against a lot of top runners in our area and seeing her do well was really cool," freshman Lauren Creath said.
Sophomore Lilly Fisher ran another impressive 5,000 meters, knocking 13 seconds off her previous personal record from two weeks ago with a time of 18:05.79.
"Lilly ran an amazing race and got a huge [personal record], and that was really inspirational to the whole team," Creath said. "I think that shows everyone that they can improve that much, too, just by putting in that much work and then bringing it to the race."
Tufts also put together its best 4x400-meter relay of the season, posting a solid 4:00.07, good for seventh place. The relay consisted of Bissonnette, junior Dayorsha Collins, Maykranz and freshman Jana Hieber. All except Hieber were coming back for their second race of the day. Junior Nakeisha Jones added to the solid results with a provisional qualifying triple jump, bounding 37'1.75" for a fourth-place finish.
The MIT Invitational was a much smaller meet and gave the Jumbos an opportunity to compete against equally small schools in a less intense environment. Highlights included the 55-meter hurdles, where a duo of freshmen led the way for the Jumbos. Freshman Kristen Roberts and Hieber finished in 9.26 and 9.27 seconds, respectively. Roberts was also the runner-up in the high jump, clearing a height of 5'0.25".
Another freshman, Laura Peterson, took the victory in the mile in 5:33.11 by edging a runner from MIT by just 0.9 seconds.
"It was nice because I had some girls to run with for pretty much the whole time, and I am coming back from being injured, so it was good to have a first meet where I felt like I was running where I should be running," Peterson said. "The competition wasn't all that great, but there were still people there to run with and to push you so in the end it wasn't that bad."
The Jumbos will next host the Tufts Invitational II Saturday, looking to fine-tune their performances before Div. III New Englands on Feb. 18-19.
