Brandeis senior Chris Brown (Chelmsford, Mass./Chelmsford) has continued his winning ways during the 2012 Outdoor Track and Field season. An All-American for the first time during the indoor campaign, Brown hopes to qualify for his fifth career NCAA championship meet. He leads a host of Judges headed into the University Athletic Association championships April 27 to 29 at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
As of April 18, Brown is ranked among the top 20 in NCAA Division III action in two events this season, the 800-meter run and the 1,500-meter run. Brown won the 800 at UMass Lowell's George Davis Invitational on April 7. His time of 1:53.13 bested 10 other runners from Division I and II institutions and is currently ranked 17th in Division III and is the fastest in the University Athletic Association (UAA). In a quad meet at Dartmouth College with the University of Vermont and Middlebury College on April 14, Brown won the 1,500 with a lifetime best mark of 3:50 even, winning the race by more than four seconds. At that meet, teammate Alex Kramer (No. Andover, Mass./No. Andover) placed fourth with a time of 3:57.35, ranked No. 39 in Division III this season and third in the UAA.
Brandeis will also be looking for another big performance at the UAA championships from sophomore Vincent Asante (Bronx, N.Y./H.S. for Arts, Imagination and Inquiry). The 2011 Association Rookie of the Year placed fourth in the 100-meter dash at Dartmouth with a time of 11.15 seconds, behind only three runners from the host Big Green, while coming in third in the 200 in 22.83 seconds. In a tight finish for second place behind a runner from Dartmouth, Asante was one of three runners within two-hundredths of a second of each other. Asante is currently ranked fourth in the UAA in the 100 and seventh in the 200.
Brandeis has two other runners ranked among the top 10 in the UAA this season. Joining Brown in the 800 meters is junior Mik Kern (Groton, N.Y./Groton), who is sixth with a time of 1:57.31, set at Dartmouth, where he placed third. Sophomore Ed Colvin (Roslindale, Mass./Catholic Memorial School) is also sixth in the UAA, in the 5,000-meter run, based on his winning time of 15:08.49 at the Judges' first meet of the season, the Tufts Snowflake Classic on March 31.
In the field events, Brandeis has had fine showing from its rookie class, which has turned in four top-10 performances, with two others from sophomores. Leading the way is rookie Jeffrey Maser (Livingston, N.J./Morristown-Beard School), who is ranked fourth in the high jump at just under six feet at 5-11 ¼, set at Tufts in March. Also ranked fourth is sophomore Kensai Hughes (Wayne, N.J./Wayne Valley) in the long jump with a personal best of 6.43 meters (21-1 ¼) set at Dartmouth. Classmate Alex Schmidt (Dublin, Ireland/Fork Union, Va., Military Acad.) is eighth in the long jump at 6.24 meters (20-5 ¾) set at Tufts. Two newcomers in the javelin, Jonathan Gilman (Yardley, Pa./George School) and Jacob Wilhoite (Santa Barbara, Calif./Santa Barbara) are ranked fifth and ninth in the UAA, respectively. Gilman threw 48.79 meters (160-1) at the Stonehill Skyhawk Invitational on March 14, while Wilhoite threw 45.90 meters (150-7) at the UMass Lowell meet on March 7. Rookie Viet Tran (Hawthorne, Calif./Mira Costa) is ranked eighth in the triple jump with a leap of 12.37 meters (40-7) at UMass Lowell.