The women's track and field squad continued its theme of distance excellence at the ECAC championships in Boston, rewriting the Tiger history books by setting a school record in the distance medley relay and qualifying as the No. 9 seed for NCAA National meet in the process.
Princeton's distance medley team finished second only to Georgetown and qualified for NCAAs by running the race in 11 minutes, 13.47 seconds, a fourteen second improvement from its previous best.
The effort included personal records from freshman Christy Johnson on the 1200 m leg and sophomore Agatha Offorjebe at 400 m. Freshman Liz Costello gave an impressive effort on the 800 m leg and senior captain Catha Mullen ran the 1600 m anchor, crossing the line less than a second behind the Hoyas.
"We were running against the clock as much as we were running against Georgetown," Mullen said.
Head coach Peter Farrell shouted encouragement to his runners as they approached the finish line, trying to will the team to Nationals with his voice.
"It was awesome to see him so excited," Mullen said. "As a runner — maybe even as an athlete — you can wait your whole career for a reaction like that from your coach."
As a team, Princeton accumulated 26 points to tie with George Mason for ninth place in a field of 51 teams. The only Ivy League team to finish above the Tigers was Cornell, which collected 37 points in fifth place after winning Heps last weekend. The University of Connecticut won the ECAC title, garnering 61 points and beating second-place Pittsburgh by nine.
Junior Karen Aherne anchored the 4x800m relay team to a third-place finish in 9:03.66. The squad was also bolstered by a personal best from junior Mawusi Arnett.
The Tigers benefited from stellar individual efforts to go along with the cooperative accomplishments of the relays, which accounted for 14 of Princeton's 26 points on the weekend. Two runners who had encountered difficulties last week recovered to take spots near the top of the standings.
Senior Caroline Mullen, who last weekend ran her final three laps with only one shoe, avoided her opponents' feet this weekend to place fifth in the mile. Meanwhile, freshman Reilly Kiernan, who was knocked down at Heps, beat her personal record by six seconds and came in fourth in the 3000 m.
Most of the team will have to wait for spring to get back on the track, but the distance medley runners will travel to Fayetteville, Ark., for the NCAA Championships this weekend.
"It was a great day. We exceeded our expectations, ran to our potential, set a school record and qualified for NCAA's. We're all really excited to get another opportunity to race," Catha said.
As for the men, a select few participated in meets in Boston and Seattle in the hopes of joining sophomore heptathlete Duane Hynes in qualifying for the NCAA Championships.
In Boston at the IC4A Championship, senior Andrew Park placed third in the pole vault, while junior David Nightingale and sophomore Michael Maag finished third and fourth, respectively, in the mile run at the University of Washington Last Chance Meet. All three efforts met the NCAA provisional qualifications, but only Nightingale was accepted to compete at NCAAs.
Nightingale crossed the finish line with a time of 4:01:61, and Maag was only one place and less than one second behind at 4:02:40. For Maag, that one second meant missing an opportunity to compete on the national stage.
Hynes and Nightingale will represent the Tigers at the NCAA meet this weekend, drawing out their stellar seasons one more weekend.
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