ATLANTA, Ga. – The Brandeis University track and field team took home one title and had two other All-Association performances at the 2019 University Athletic Association Outdoor Track and Field championships today.
The title came in the women's 4x800-meter relay. The team of senior Julia Bryson (Quincy, Mass./North Quincy), sophomore Lisbeth Valdez (Providence, R.I./Hope), senior Doyin Ogundiran (Dix Hills, N.Y./Half Hollow Hills East) and senior Emily Bryson (Quincy, Mass./North Quincy) took the crown with a time of 9:12.82, breaking a school record in the process. They won the race by seven seconds over second-place Carnegie Mellon. The previous school record was set in 2010, and the new quarter lowered the mark by six seconds. For Emily Bryson, this represents her 10th UAA championship in a remarkable seven different events.
The Brandeis women had one other All-Association race on the track today, as rookie Jac Guerra (Guilford, Conn./Guilford) was the runner-up in the 3000-meter steeplechase. In his first collegiate race in the event, Guerra's time was 11:15.50, about 4.5 seconds off the winning pace.
The men earned one UAA medal today, in the pole vault, where junior Aaron Corin (Sudbury, Mass./Lincoln-Sudbury) was third with a height of 4.52 meters. Corin was followed by former high school teammate sophomore Breylen Ammen (Lincoln, Mass./Lincoln-Sudbury), who was fourth at 4.17 meters.
In addition to the record in the 4x800, Brandeis set one other school record, as rookie Sonali Anderson (Fayetteville, Ga./Whitewater) lowered her mark in the 100-meter hurdles for the fourth time, lowering it to 15.21 seconds to qualify for tomorrow's final. Anderson has now lowered the mark by six-tenths of a second over the course of the outdoor season.
The Brandeis men had three other scoring performances on the day. Senior Scott Grote (Greenfield, Mass./Greenfield) was responsible for two of them, taking sixth in both the shot put (12.96 meters) and the hammer throw (46.41 meters). In the 4x800-meter relay, the squad of rookie Aaron Portman (Wheeling, Ill. / Adlai E. Stevenson), junior Jacob Judd (West Hartford, Conn. / Conard), junior Erez Needleman (Bronx, NY / High School of American Studies at Lehman College), and rookie Jacob Grant (Rockville Center, N.Y. / South Side High School) were fourth with a time of 7:55.22, leaning out the team from Chicago by two-hundredths of a second.
Joining Anderson as runners to make it to tomorrow's finals in preliminary races were:
- Ogundiran and sophomore Leinni Valdez (Providence, R.I./Hope), women's 800m, 2:17.17 and 2:19.28, 1st and 7th seeds;
- Senior Regan Charie (Topsfield, Mass./Masconomet Regional) and junior Lorenzo Maddox (Atlanta, Ga./Maynard Jackson), men's 100m, 10.96 seconds and 11.03 seconds, 2nd and 4th seeds;
- Charie, men's 200m, 22.19 seconds, 4th seed;
- Rookie Dion Morris-Evans (Canal Fulton, Ohio / Northwest), men's 110m hurdles, 15.61 seconds, 5th seed.
With seven events scored on the first day of action, the women are in fifth place with 18 points, while the men are in sixth with 22 points.