Allan Resets School Record to Lead Judges at DIII New England Championships

Jack Allan '20 (Photo by Sportspix)
Jack Allan '20 (Photo by Sportspix)

MIDDLEBURY, VT and SPRINGFIELD, MASS. – The men's and women's track and field teams kicked off the championship portion of the season with the Division III New England Track and Field Championships.  The men's championship took place at Middlebury College while the women competed at Springfield College.  In the team standings the men placed 13th with 14 points with the women 16th with 15 points. 

The standout performance on the men's side was sophomore Jack Allan (Wrentham, Mass./ King Phillip Regional) resetting his own school record in the heptathlon to place third.  Allan, who is now ranked 28th nationally in the event, jumped, ran, and threw his way to a score of 4511 points, 36 points better than his previous record. One the first day of the completion Allan set a new personal best in the 60m (7.46 seconds), a season best in the long jump (6.40m) and shot put (11.43m) as well, equaling his seasons best in the high jump with a 1.80m jump.  His second day began with an 8.96 second 60m hurdles, included a 3.35m vault, and was capped with a big personal best in the 1000m run with a time of 2:55.16.

The other top-five finish came from graduate student Irie Gourde (Portland, Ore./ York Academy, Canada) who placed second in the 400m with a time of 49.13.  This performance marked the 4th time under 50 seconds in the open 400 for Gourde this season and worked as a nice tune up for the UAA and National Championships.

Gourde came back later to anchor the 4x400m relay with a sub 50 split as well.  The team recorded a time of 3:26.88 to place 9th.  Sophomore Churchill Perry (Pembroke Pines, Fla./ Westminster Academy) led off for the Judges with a 51.7 split, followed by freshman Patrick Quinlan (Northampton, Mass./ Northampton) (52.1) and junior Henry McDonald (Weymouth, Mass./ Weymouth) (53.5); Gourde brought the quartet home in 49.5.  Their time was a season best for the squad who hoped to contend for the UAA title as well as a nationals birth.

Perry and McDonald, as well as teammate Regan Charie (Topsfield, Mass./ Masconomet Regional) all pulled double duty at the championships as well.  Along with the 4x400 Perry competed in the triple jump finishing 19th with a jump of 11.38m (37-4).  McDonald competed in the 60m hurdles finishing 28th with a time of 9.09 seconds.  Charie competed in both the 60m and the 200m.  In the 60m he recorded a personal best of .03 seconds running 7.15 for 16th while in the 200m he ran 23.02 for 15th.

Other performances included junior Scott Grote (Greenfield, Mass./ Greenfield) competing in both the shot put and weight throw.  Grote threw 12.70m (41-8) to place 21st in the shot and followed that up with a solid 13.93m (45-8.5) toss in the weight throw to place 19th. In the middle distances sophomore Jacob Judd (West Hartford, CT/ Conard) ran 2:38.59 to place 15th in the 1000m while the 4x800m relay placed 10th with a time of 8:13.64. The quartet was made up of freshman Joshua Lombardo (Westbrook, Maine/ Westbrook) (2:01.3), freshman Harper Pollio-Barbee (Philadelphia, Penn./ Penn Charter) (1:59.7), sophomore Erez Needleman (Bronx, NY/ High School of American Studies)  (2:02.5) and freshman Eric Rosenheim (Haddon Heights, N.J./ Haddon Heights) (2:09.5).

Look for the team next when they battle the rest of the conference at the UAA championships.  The meet takes place at Case Western Reserve on the Feb. 24th-25th.

-Eli Waxler '19