CHICAGO, Ill. – Brandeis track and field standouts Emily Bryson (Quincy, Mass./North Quincy) and Irie Gourde (Portland, Ore./Westminster School, Canada) continued their outstanding 2016-17 seasons at the University Athletic Association Outdoor Championships this weekend at the University of Chicago.
Bryson, a sophomore, won her second UAA title of the year and the fourth of her career by capturing the 1,500-meter run with a time of 4:36.85. She defeated Emory's Gabrielle Strahavich by just over a second-and-a-half. The time put Bryson in 22nd place in Division III this season, putting her in position to qualify for the NCAA Championships in May. Bryson's previous UAA crowns have come at the cross country championships as a freshman, the 2016 5,000-meters outdoors and the 2017 mile run indoors. Bryson's twin sister Julia Bryson also earned a point in the 1,500, placing eighth with a time of 4:50.77.
Gourde, a senior, earned multiple All-Association honors for the second time in 2017, having performed the feat indoor as well. He captured his third and fourth career silver medals with a pair of top-20 times in Division III this season. Gourde broke his own school record in the 200-meter run during the preliminaries with a time of 21.68 seconds, 0.04 out of the top seed. In the finals, he ran 21.81 seconds, second place by 0.1 seconds. In the 400-meter dash, Gourde ran the fastest prelim time, 49.39 seconds, then beat that by nearly a 1.5 seconds in the finals with a mark of 47.82 seconds. Though that was good for second place at the meet, it was the sixth-fastest time in Division III this season, making Gourde a likely candidate for the NCAA Championships. His prelim time in the 200 is 17th-fastest in Division III, which would also qualify him for the Championships.
Brandeis had one other All-UAA performance, as sophomore Regan Charie (Topsfield, Mass./Masconomet Regional) earned bronze in the 100-meter dash. After running 10.92 seconds in the prelims, the finals were an incredible photo finish, with Roderick Smith of WashU edging Chicago's Jatan Anand and Charie both by one-hundredth of a second. The margin between Anand and Charie was even slimmer, decided by a photo finish. This was his second career All-UAA honor, as he took third indoors in the 200. Charie also scored a point in that event outdoors, coming in eighth with a time of 22.81 seconds.
Charie also anchored Brandeis's best relay performance of the weekend, as the 4x100-meter team of rookie Lorenzo Maddox (Atlanta, Ga./Maynard Jackson), sophomore Henry McDonald (Weymouth, Mass./Weymouth), rookie Michael Kroker (Aumsville, Ore./Cascade) and Charie placed fourth with a time of 43.58 seconds, less than a second out of All-UAA contention.
The Brandeis women turned in a pair of fifth-place relay finishes. In the 4x100, it was the team of sophomore Kanya Brown (Amherst, Mass./Amherst Reg.), rookie Kayla Kurland-Davis (Colrain, Mass./Mohawk Trail Regional), rookie Courtney Page (Laurel, Md./Milton, Mass.) and junior Jessie Moore (Rye, N.Y./Rye), who ran 50.04, just four-hundredths of a second off the fourth-place time turned in by Case Western Reserve. In the 4x800, rookie Madeline Hayman (Worcester, Mass./Burncoat), sophomore Meaghan Barry (Marlborough, Mass./Worcester Acad.), sophomore Maya Sands-Bliss (Williamsburg, Mass./Amherst Regional) and junior Kyra Shreeve (Northborough, Mass./Algonquin Regional) posted a time of 10:01.09.
Sophomore Doyin Ogundiran (Dix Hills, N.Y./Half Hollow Hills East) added a national-caliber performance in an individual race as well, finishing fifth in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:15.15, which is ranked 27th among Division III women. The team's other nationally-ranked performance for the weekend came from junior Liam Garvey (West Springfield, Mass./West Springfield), who placed seventh in his first try at 10,000-meters this season with a time of 31:27.52, the 49th-best time in Division III this season for the men.
The Judges had three other multi-event scorers. Julia Bryson, in addition to her eighth-place finish in the 1,500, came in eighth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 11:40.74 in just her second time running the race in competition. In the throwing events, sophomore Scott Grote (Greenfield, Mass./Greenfield) placed fourth in the discus (42.80 meters or 140 feet, 5 inches) and eighth in the shot put (12.80m, 42-0) junior Jordin Carter (Fort Wayne, Ind./R Nelson Snyder) of the women's squad placed sixth in the shot put (10.54 meters, 34 feet, seven inches) and seventh in the hammer throw (37.24 meters, 122-2).
In the high jump, senior Mark Franklin (Auburn, N.H./Pinkerton Acad.) finished fifth with a height of 1.87 meters (6-1 ½) to earn points for the Judges at all eight of his career UAA Championship meets, indoors and outdoors. Junior Ryan Stender (Amherst, Mass./Amherst Regional) continued his road back from injury with an eighth-place finish in the 5,000-meter run with a time of 15:12.16. Finally, the Judges had a pair of scoring performances in the pole vault, where rookie Aaron Corin (Sudbury, Mass./Lincoln-Sudbury) was sixth at 4.26 meters (13-11 ¾) while junior Beth Defossez (Boxford, Mass./Masconomet Regional) tied for eighth at 2.86 meters (9-4 ½) to earn half a point.
In the team scoring, Brandeis finished in seventh place on both the men's and women's sides. The men collected 55 points, nine behind NYU, while the women tallied 38.5, 13.5 behind NYU.