GOURDE TAKES SILVER, ALLAN BRONZE AT NEW ENGLAND DIVISION III CHAMPIONSHIPS
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – The Brandeis men's track and field team had its best showing in more than a decade at the New England Division III Outdoor championships thanks to a pair of top-three individual performances and two All-New England relays. The Judges scored 23 points to finish in a tie for 11th place. The meet was held at Williams College.
Leading the way was senior Irie Gourde (Portland, Ore./York School, Toronto), who finished in second place in the 200-meter dash. Gourde won his heat with a time of 21.78 seconds, just a tenth of a second off his season-best performance. Gourde finished second to Anthony Kardonsky of Tufts by just seven-hundredths of a second. His finish was the best by a Brandeis runner at the Outdoor New England Championships since 2012. It was the third individual All-New England title for Gourde this year, having won the 200 title and place second in the 400 indoors.
The Judges also had a bronze medalist in the decathlon, where rookie Jack Allan (Wrentham, Mass./King Phillip Regional) placed third with a lifetime-best score of 5757. Allan finished among the top three in five of the 10 events and also recorded personal bests in five. His PRs came in the 400-meter dash (53.07 seconds, 2nd place), the 1,500-meter run (5:04.11, 4th place), the long jump (6.21 meters, 20-4 1/2, 2nd place) and the 110-high hurdles (15.52 seconds, 2nd place) and the pole vault (3.35 meters, 10-11 ¾, 7th place). His additional top-three events were the high jump (1.77 m, 5-9 ¾, 2nd), the 100 meters (11.80 seconds, 3rd) and the shot put (10.76 m, 35-3 ¾, 3rd). Allan had previously earned All-Region honors indoors in the heptathlon, where he finished fifth.
The Judges' final individual All-New England performance for the men came from junior Mitchell Hutton (Villa Park, Calif./Villa Park) in the 5,000-meter run. Hutton placed fifth overall with a time of 15:02.27, good for his second-straight All-New England honor outdoors. He finished in sixth place in 2016.
Brandeis also added a pair of top-eight finishes in relays. Gourde anchored the 4x400-meter team to a time of 3:20.30, second in their heat and the fastest time in the event in recent memory, qualifying them for the ECAC Championships. Gourde teamed with two other seniors – Nick Wactor (Oakland, Calif./Head-Royce) and Jeremy Wilson (Elizabeth, N.J./Elizabeth) – along with rookie Churchill Perry (Pembroke Pines, Fla./Westminster Acad.) to place sixth overall.
In the 4x100-meter relay, three sophomores and a rookie took home All-New England honors with a seventh-place finish, posting a time of 42.83 seconds, winning their heat. Rookie Lorenzo Maddox (Atlanta, Ga./Maynard Jackson) led off the relay, followed by sophomores Henry McDonald (Weymouth, Mass./Weymouth), Mitchell Kroker (Aumsville, Ore./Cascade), and Regan Charie (Topsfield, Mass./Masconomet Regional),
Brandeis track and field will return to Williams next weekend for the Open New England Championships, followed by the ECAC Championships at Rowan College in Glassboro, N.J., where they will hope to qualify for the NCAA Championships the last weekend in May.