CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Brandeis University track and field team put together four scoring performances on the first day of action at the 2013 University Athletic Association (UAA) indoor championships at Case Western Reserve.
The highlight of the meet for the Judges on the first day of action was women's distance medley relay. Unseeded headed into the meet, the Judges took home the UAA title by more than five seconds over second-place Chicago with a time of 12:12.91. Junior Amelia Lundkvist (So. Portland, Maine/Cheverus) ran the lead 1,200-meter leg, followed by seniorCasey McGown (Clinton, Mass./Clinton) in the 400. Rookie Kelsey Whitaker (Kingston, Mass./Notre Dame Acad.) ran the 800-meter leg and junior Victoria Sanford (LaGrangeville, N.Y./Andover) anchored with the mile run. It was the first All-UAA honor for any of the four runners.
Also scoring points for the Brandeis women were a pair of long jumpers. Senior Brittany Bell (Setauket, N.Y./Hotchkiss School) placed fourth with a distance of 5.16 meters (16 feet, 11 ¼ inches), while rookie Melissa Darling (Weymouth, Mass./Weymouth) was sixth with a leap of 5.07 meters (16-7 ¾). The three scoring performances have the Judges in fifth place with 15 points.
The Brandeis men had one scoring performance, also coming in the DMR, where the Judges earned All-UAA honors with a third-place finish and a time of 10:25.96. Senior Mik Kern (Groton, N.Y./Groton) led off the relay, with rookie soccer standout Josh Hacunda (Hopkinton, Mass./Hopkinton) running the 400. Sophomore Taylor Dundas (Bath, Maine/Cheverus) ran the 800, while senior Alex Kramer (No. Andover, Mass./No. Andover) anchored in the mile. The Judges' six points earned by the DMR puts them in sixth place.
In tomorrow's finals, Brandeis will have a handful of high seeds. Kramer and Kern are the top two UAA performers in the mile run. In today's preliminaries, Bell for the women and juniorVincent Asante (Bronx, N.Y./High School for the Arts Imagination and Inquiry) both finished with the second-fastest times in the women's and men's 55-meter dash today. Asante had a time of 6.55 seconds. His 22.90 seconds was also good for a spot in the 200-meter finals tomorrow, placing fifth today. Bell's qualifying time was 7.34 seconds. She just missed the 200 finals by five-hundredths of a second with a time of 26.84 seconds. Darling qualified for the finals in the 55-meter hurdles in the fourth spot with a time of 9.15 seconds. Senior Kim Farrington (Shirley, Mass./Ayer) is among the top performers in the triple jump as well.