CHICAGO, Ill. -- The Brandeis track and field team had one All-UAA performance and two other scorers today on the first day of action at the University Athletic Associationchampionships at the University of Chicago.
On the men's side, Brandeis had two scoring performances. Sophomore Mark Franklin (Auburn, N.H./Pinkerton Acad.) placed in the top six in the high jump for the second year in a row. He took fifth place with a height of 1.86 meters, just off his personal best and improving on his 2014 sixth-place performance. The Judges also used a group consisting of all four classes to earn a point the men's DMR. The quartet of senior Greg Bray (Duxbury, Mass./Duxbury), sophomore Omar Scruggs (Tampa, Fla./Berkley Prep), rookie Marcello Brociner(Somerville, Mass./Somerville) and junior Grady Ward (Essex Junction, Vt./Essex) took the final scoring spot with a time of 10:44.76, well ahead of seventh-place Case Western Reserve.
Also finishing in the top 10 for the men were rookie Liam Garvey (West Springfield, Mass./West Springfield), who PRed in the 5,000-meters with a time of 15:33.33, and senior Adam Berger (Concord, N.H./Concord) in the long jump with a distance of 6.13 meters.
For the third year in a row, the Judges had a top-three performance in the women's distance medley relay. Brandeis used a runner from each class to place third with a time of 12:22.72, just under three seconds ahead of fourth-place Carnegie Mellon. SeniorKristi Pisarik (Chelmsford, Mass./Chelmsford) ran the lead-off leg of 1,200-meter, while rookie Haliana Burhans (Charlotte, Vt./Champlain Valley Union) was second with the 400-meter sprint. Sophomore Ashley Piccirillo-Horan (No. Granby, Conn./Granby Memorial) was third in the 800-meter leg, while junior Kelsey Whitaker(Kingston, Mass./Notre Dame Acad.) ran the anchor mile leg. It was the second All-UAA honor in the DMR for Pisarik and the third for Whitaker.
The women had one runner advance to tomorrow's final, as Burhans finished fifth in the prelims of the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.60 seconds, a shade off her season-best. Burhans, who won her heat, was 0.31 seconds out of fourth place. She ran a personal best in the 400 meters of 1:00.12, but finished eighth, 0.28 seconds out of the finals.
The Brandeis women were in sixth place with 6 points after Day 1 of the UAAs, while the men were in seventh with three points.