TRACK | Yale track is making strides

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Monday, January 26, 2009

This article has been corrected. You may view this article’s correction here.

This weekend, the men’s and women’s track teams competed in Boston, at the Boston University Terrier Invitational. The meet hosted top track and field programs from several schools across the Northeast including Holy Cross, Quinnipiac, Tufts, Harvard, Brown and MIT.

The Bulldogs held it down this weekend, using the experience as preparation for the Heptagonal Championships, which will be held at Harvard’s indoor track later this year. BU’s indoor track is similar to Harvard’s, so the Elis were able to use this weekend as practice for running on a fast track.

On the men’s side of the meet, five runners qualified for IC4A championships including Brandon Giles ’09, Jeffrey Lachman ’09, Jared Bell ’09, Murat Kayali ’09 and Julian Sheinbaum ’12. Sheinbaum, the only freshman to qualify, finished the mile in 4:14.88, three seconds short of his high school personal record. Kayali and Bell finished within four seconds of each other in the 3000-meter run.

The highlight of the day for the men, however, was Remi Ray’s ’10 1:02.09 time in the 500-meter dash. The time put him in first place in the event, but also led him to hold the 500-meter dash national record in the 2009 indoor track season.

“It was kind of a relief to finally be able to run that fast again because I’ve been battling injuries. So it’s great to be back in proper form and to be competing at that level,” Ray said.

According to Matt Bieszard ’12, this meet was less about placing and more about making personal improvements since it was not scored.

The women also took the opportunity to capitalize on their previous individual performances this weekend.

“Going into the meet everyone was really excited because we just came out of the Dartmouth-Columbia meet where we competed really well as a team,” Alexa Monti ’12 said.

Monti, who has performed well in only her first season with the Bulldogs, finished the 200-meter dash in 26.00. Captain Jen Lin ’09 made serious strides toward personal records, finishing the 400-meter dash in 57.84 seconds in addition to her contribution of a 57.3 relay split in the 4×400-meter relay. Kate Grace ’11 continued her qualifying streak from last weekend by qualifying again for the ECAC championships with her 4:58.35 in the mile run.

“Track is a more individual sport, but for everyone to really focus on their event and be able to contribute to the team as a whole is something that I’ve really appreciated,” Monti said.

According to Bulldog team members, the BU Terrier Invitational served as an opportunity to go up against several league powerhouses early in the season. “Remi Ray broke the school record and there were very few people that weren’t happy with their own performances,” Giles said. “We just need to believe in ourselves — in terms of talent we have some of the best in the league.”

The Bulldogs do not have a meet this weekend and team members said that they will use the down time to prepare for the upcoming Giegengack Invitational hosted at Yale’s Coxe Cage.

“Hopefully just having this weekend off we’ll be able to get in some good training and try to bring it to the next meet,” Monti said.

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