Harrison's school record leads Tufts women's track to fourth at Div. III New Englands

Over the weekend, the Jumbos traveled to Middlebury, Vt. for the annual Div. III New England Championships. The Jumbos scored 52 points en route to tying with Southern Maine for fourth place overall, behind third place Middlebury (82 points), second place Williams (93.83 points) and winner MIT (123.5 points).

Senior quad-captain Alexis Harrison's performance was the story of the day. Harrison showed up at Middlebury's Virtue FieldHouse motivated and fast. In the preliminaries of the 60-meter dash, Harrison broke her own school record of 7.75 seconds by running 0.04 seconds faster at 7.71. Later in the day during the finals, Harrison obliterated her hour-old school record with a mind-boggling 7.63 run to take the win over Springfield sophomore Courtney Luscier, who clocked a 7.67. Harrison's time almost automatically qualifies her for the NCAA Championships, as her 7.63 time is now ranked second in the nation, behind Illinois Wesleyan senior Nia Joiner, who clocked a 7.55 a few weeks ago. Harrison, however, was not done yet. She returned to place third in the 200 meters at 25.80 seconds, and was fourth in the long jump at 17 ft., eight in. to cap off a prolific day.

Senior quad-captain Marilyn Allen also had a solid showing on the track, scoring eight points for the Jumbos on the day. Allen started off with a 9.0 second finish in the 60-meter hurdles to take second, then returned to the track later in the day to run the 200 meters, where she placed eighth overall with a time of 26.20 seconds, and ran a leg of the 4x400 meter relay. Allen's 8.97 from the prelims currently places her at 16th in the nation in the 60-meter hurdles, putting her right on the cusp of qualifying for NCAAs again. If she can put together a string of strong races like she did at the end of last indoor season, her ticket to the dance will surely be punched.

The Jumbos distance team also had an impressive day as multiple runners attained All-New England status. In the 1000 meters, junior Samantha Cox placed seventh overall and second in her heat, running 3:04.38. Senior quad-captain Sydney Smith struck again in the mile, finishing fifth after a solid race at 5:03.41, just off her indoor PR of 5:03.10. In the 3000 meters, senior Olivia Beltrani placed seventh overall, running a new season best of 10:31.58 to earn All-New England status. In the 5000 meters later in the day, sophomore Brittany Bowman came up big running the second sub-18 minute5,000-meter of her career, clocking 17:52.33 for fifth overall and All-Region status. Senior quad-captain Audrey Gould, who is currently 13th on the national list for the 5000 meters, was eighth in 18:07.13.

A few of the Jumbo relays also had good showings. The Jumbos' 4x800 meter team of sophomores Prudence Sax and Sara Stokesbury, Cox and Smith placed fourth with a new season's best of 9:39.04, while the distance medley relay team of first-year Olivia Barnett, juniors Rita Donohoe and Kelly Fahey, and Stokesbury ran 12:42.67 to take seventh overall.

"I was very happy with my double[-event day]," Cox said. "I haven't had that good of a double since high school in all honesty. This was the first time that I ran more than just the 4x800 at Div III's, and I'm really pleased that I could run a good 1000 and then turn around an hour later and run a fast 800 leg. I proved to myself that I'm tough enough to do it."

In the field, sophomore Amylee Anyoha picked up a seventh place finish with her weight throw, launching the standard 49 ft, 11.25 in for a massive PR of over three and a half feet.

"I was really surprised about my PR," Anyoha said. "I've only been able to come to practice a couple of times a week so I thought I would have choked like I did at the last meet. I was a little nervous because my coach had to go with the guys team but I think what helped me was not over-thinking things."

Anyoha is one of only two throwers on the women's team this year, along with sophomore Jennifer Sherwill, but she believes the small size of the throwing team actually provides an advantage since she and Sherwill get more coaching attention in their training. Her coaches, Jon and Lisa LeClair, have also had significant success coaching the men's throwers as well this year.

"I like having smaller groups because it's easier to support my team," Anyoha said. "The dynamic has changed with the girls and guys throwing together but it has only helped get our distances up."

First-year Brita Dawson showed promise in the long jump, just barely missing All-New England honors with her ninth place showing, with a leap of 16 ft 10.75 in., while senior Mary Ellen Caruso also just missed the distinction, with her 10th-place showing in the triple jump, bounding out 34 ft, 10.5 in.

Overall, Cox is not satisfied and believes that the Jumbos had more to prove on the day.

"It was definitely a tough meet for us," she said. "We had some great performances and we had some people really step up to where they needed to, like Amy in the weight throw. But there is a lot for our team to improve on going into outdoor. The seniors give their best in every meet, and the rest of us need to follow suit and perform like we are one of the best teams in New England, because we are."

At this time, most of the team will start focusing on the outdoor season, which begins next month. However, a few will remain in competition for the next few weeks and will compete at next weekend's NEICAAA Championships at Boston University. The Last Chance meet at Tufts the following weekend will provide an additional qualifying opportunity to those who have not yet qualified for the NCAA Div. III National Championships at Grinnell College in Iowa from March 11 to 12.

"We still have some athletes moving on further into postseason," Cox said. "Several of our seniors have their eyes set on nationals, and we have some people looking to qualify. We may run a DMR in the coming weeks, but we may also decide to look ahead to outdoor and train hard so that we can enter the season primed to go. We don't stop between indoor and outdoor, and we're only going to train harder in the weeks and months to come."