Women's track finishes indoor season at ECAC championships

With the exception of senior Cecilia Barowski, who will be competing at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in Alabama this weekend, women’s track and field concluded their indoor season with a fourth place title at the Eastern College Athletic Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships in Boston last Sunday, earned by the all-freshman relay team of Alie Fordyce, Brighid Leach, Jackie Berardo and Anna Jurew.

With a qualification time of 2:03.24 at the Princeton Invitational on Feb. 21, Barowski will race in the 800m race on Friday, March 11 at the Birmingham CrossPlex at Samford University. This will be her first time competing at the NCAA Indoor Championships, though she competed in the NCAA Outdoor Championships in 2015. This is also the first appearance for Princeton in this event. Her teammates are proud of her accomplishment. “We are extremely excited to see how she does!” senior Taylor Morgan exclaimed.

Morgan is impressed with her team’s accomplishments this past indoor season and how they’ve prepared them for their upcoming outdoor season. “Many of my teammates and I had a lot of personal success this past indoor, which I was very pleased to see. As a team I think we have some solid base going into the outdoor season and outdoor Heps, which at this point is two months away,” she explained.

Morgan is looking to the spring season for both personal and collective of improvement. “I hope both to continue improving personally as well as for my teammates to continue improving themselves,” Morgan said, “The idea is to raise up the standard of practice and competition in order to make each other the best athletes we can be.”

Men’s track and field has also finished its indoor season. The team topped of its season with an impressive first place finish at the Ivy League Heptagonal Indoor Track and Field Championships last weekend. Many members contributed to the win with standout performances, including sophomore Garrett O’Toole in the mile, senior Greg Caldwell in the 60-meter hurdles, junior Chris and sophomore Mitchel Charles in shot put, junior Ray Mennin in the 400 and freshman Charles Volker in the 60m dash.

Senior Luke Brahm shortly followed in second place in the 1,000m after sophomore Noah Kauppila came in first. Senior Jake Scinto also contributed significantly in the heptathlon, junior Xavier Bledsoe won the high jump with a personal record and sophomore Carrington Akosa earned the first place title in the 200m. Akosa was also named the Most Outstanding Track Performer of the Week.

Akosa acknowledges both the team’s excellent performance both last weekend and throughout the indoor season. “I won the 200m, and I felt really happy because it was my second time winning it. It was also at Cornell, so we had to beat Cornell, so it was all pretty good, so we’re just training for outdoor now,” he said. Akosa also expressed the team’s goals for the upcoming season. “We have great people on the track team, and we’re looking to do damage outdoors and hopefully go to nationals, especially since the end of the season was the best ever in history,” he noted.

Based on both their success on the track this indoor season and the unanimous naming of Fred Samara as the Ivy League Indoor Track and Field Men’s Head Coach of the Year, the Tigers indeed will prove to be a threat as they move to the outdoor track.