Track & Field: Tigers meet six NCAA provisional times

This weekend, 11 runners from the men’s and women’s track teams traveled to Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., to compete against runners from all around the country and earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament.

Of the Tigers competing, four individual runners and a distance medley team of four runners met the NCAA provisional qualifying times in their events. Though these runners met the provisional mark, none qualified for the championship tournament.

“The team came up a little short and somewhat flat over the weekend,” women’s head coach Peter Farrell said. “In some cases, we just had no juice left over from the Heps victory. Our distance crew forced the pace at Notre Dame but at the end fell just short of qualifying for nationals.”

Senior Reilly Kiernan set the stage for the Tigers as she placed third in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 16 minutes and 21.94 seconds, meeting the NCAA provisional qualifying time and making a new personal best time. Kiernan is also a former associate news editor for The Daily Princetonian.

Next, junior Ashley Higginson and sophomore Alex Banfich competed in the 3,000-meter run. Higginson took fourth place at 9:30.40 and was the last person in the race to meet the NCAA provisional qualifying time. Banfich came in a close fifth at 9:34.61, missing the provisional mark by two seconds.

The men’s distance medley team, consisting of freshman Peter Callahan, junior Mike Eddy, freshman Russell Dinkins and sophomore Trevor Van Ackeren, took 10th place out of 19 teams. The team still met the NCAA provisional qualifying time by running the race in 9:37.30 — a new Princeton record for the distance medley relay.

Dinkins went on to get another provisional qualifying time in the 800-meter dash, finishing 15th out of 37 runners. He completed the race in 1:50.19, setting a new personal record and topping his former personal best by a full second.

Sophomore Austin Hollimon placed fourth in the 400-meter dash. Hollimon's time of 47.19 seconds was his fourth provisional qualifying time of the season. It was also his second-best time of the season in the 400-meter dash.

Junior Kyle Soloff, the last runner to compete for the Tigers, took 15th place out of 40 runners in the mile. His time of 4:06.24 was a personal best but fell short of the NCAA provisional qualifying time by three seconds.

This weekend, a group of Princeton athletes also journeyed to the women’s Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championship in Boston. Seven Tigers competed in the event — freshmen Erin Guty, Joie Hand, Tory Worthen and Melizza Zajdel, sophomores Danielle Glaeser and Eileen Moran, and junior Thanithia Billings.

Worthen placed first in the pole vault, clearing 4.11 meters. Worthen's mark set a new ECAC record, topping the old mark by .01 meters. Billings finished third in shot put, throwing a distance of 14.37 meters. Moran competed in the 60-yard dash, clocking in at 7.68 seconds to finish sixth out of 20 runners.

The 4x400 team of Moran, Hand, Glaeser and Zajdel ran a time of 3:50.09 in the preliminary round and did not make it to the final round. Glaeser also participated in the 400-meter dash preliminaries, posting a time of 57.40 seconds. Guty jumped 5.21 meters in the long jump competition.