In the final tune-up prior to the Little East Conference Championships in two weeks, the Warriors competed at the NYU Division III Invitational Friday night at the historic Nike Track & Field Center at The Armory in New York, NY.
Eastern competes in the LEC Championships Feb. 17 at the University of Southern Maine's Costello Complex for the second season under head coach David Nicholson '06. At the LEC meet last year at Plymouth, NH in an eight-team field, the Eastern men placed second, 12 points behind champion University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. The Eastern women were fourth.
Friday's Highlights
Women
* Six individuals plus one relay recorded marks among the Top 20 in program history.
* Eastern runners took three of the top 25 and four of the top 28 in the mile, which included 57 runners; in her first try in the mile, Meghan Georgescu (Cheshire) had the fourth-best time in program history (5:24.79), good enough for 12th place; in her first mile, Ali LeClerc (Wolcott) had the ninth-best time (5:31.49), which placed her 15th; and Keara Fontaine (North Kingstown, RI) posted the 20th best time (5:45.04), which gave her 28th place.
* Analiese Poisson (Jamestown, RI) had the seventh-best time (10.36) in program history in the preliminaries of the 60m hurdles.
* Also among the Top 20 were Carly Alston (Franklin, MA) in the mile (5:43.54), the 4x400m relay (4:18.14) and Emily Jones (Bridgeport) in the 60m (8.73). Alston finished 25th, the relay tenth among 23 teams, and Jones was 13th among 42 in the unseeded 60. Combining on the relay were Alyssa Sirianni (Vernon), Saige Kirkland (Windsor), Laci Davis (Prospect) and Ashley Gentile (Hebron).
In fields which reached as high as 74 participants, Davis had the highest finish (fourth) in the triple jump (34-0 1/4) in a field of 22 competitors.
In the Little East rankings, the 4x400m relay's converted time from a banked to a flat track of 4:21.58 is the fastest this year; Davis' mark in the triple jump is the second-best (first among freshmen) in the LEC this year; Georgescu's converted time in the mile of 5:28.01 is the fifth-best in the conference so far, and Kirkland's converted time of 27.64 in the 200 is the eight-best in the LEC.
Men
Adam Schimmelpfennig (Pomfret) broke his own record again in the 60m hurdles (8.31), which remains the top time this year in the event in the Little East.
The Warriors had nine Top 10 finishes: Conor Hennessy (Granby) won the long jump (22-1 1/2) and Mike Collins (Bloomfield) was third (21- 6 3/4), Cory Bill (Mansfield) was second in the 400m (50.60), Michael Hemmings (Bridgeport) was third in the high jump (6-0), Schimmelpfennig third in the 60m hurdles and the 4x400m 'A' relay third (3:29.96), and the 4x400 'B' relay fifth (3:30.87); in a field of 90 competitors, Eric Phongsa (Pomfret) was seventh (22.79) and Kaito Yasuda (Columbia) eighth (22.84) in the 200m.
It was the third time indoors that Conor Hennessy has won the long jump, the first two coming at Coast Guard during his freshman season when he set his previous PR of 21-9 1/2. He also won the event twice outdoors as a freshman.
Bill set a PR in the 400 for the second time in as many meets, clocking a 51.17 Dec. 2 at Suffolk University.
The 4x400 relay which ran to third place in a field of 24 included Schimmelpfennig, first-year runners James Saint-Jean (Bridgeport) and Zachary D'Andrea (Wallingford), and Bill.
Bill, Conor Hennessy, and Collins all qualified for the New England Division III meet to be held Feb. 25-26 at New Balance.
With a time of 7.19 in the preliminaries of the 60m, Yasuda moved into the all-time Top 20 into a tie for ninth place; in his first mile, Dylan McGuire (Preston) moved into the Top 20 at 17th place with a time of 4:37.37; Conor Hennessy moved from sixth place into a tie for fourth in the long jump, and Collins advanced from 15th into a tie for 11th in the long jump.
Continuing his rehabilitation from an injury which cut short his cross country season, senior Thomas Stone (Glastonbury) was 14th among 84 runners in the mile with a time of 4:24.90. The time was just off his PR of 4:24.61 and bettered considerably his 4:35.93 clocking on a flat track at URI Jan. 20 in his first mile of the season.
NYU DIII Invitational
at The Nike Track & Field Center at The Armory
New York, NY
EASTERN'S FINISHERS
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