UPDATE! The Brandeis women's distance medley relay reached the podium at the 2010 NCAA Division III Championships. The Judges earned All-America honors by finishing in third place with a time of 11:52.94 over the 4000-meter race. The Judges were among the top six for much of the race, with Selig making up ground as the anchor leg. They finished about 2.5 seconds behind national championship St. Thomas and 1.31 seconds behind runner-up Wisconsin-Eau Claire, but were nearly four seconds faster than fourth-place College of New Jersey.
UPDATE! Senior Suzanne Bernier (Hanson, Mass./Whitman-Hanson) tied for 13th in the high jump with a height of 1.61 meters. Five others cleared the height, with Bernier earning 13th out of 16 overall competitors based on number of jumps. She cleared the opening height of 1.56 meters on her first attempt before making 1.61 on her third and final try.
UPDATE! You can follow the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field championships at ncaa.com, and watch live streaming video of the meet
Images from the meet are available at http://www.d3trackphotos.com.
Overall, the Brandeis women finished in a four-way tie for 36th place with six points. The Judges were third among UAA schools (Chicago, T4th, 21 points; Emory, T34th, 7 points) and tied for eighth among New England schools with Wellesley. MIT topped the New England contingent in 10th place with 18.5 points. Wartburg College won the meet with 33 points, four ahead of second-place Wisconsin-Osh Kosh.
WALTHAM, Mass. - Five members of the Brandeis women's track and field team will represent the Judges at the 2010 NCAA Division III Track and Field championships at DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., on Friday and Saturday, March 12 and 13.
Senior Suzanne Bernier of Hanson, Mass., will represent the Judges as an individual in the high jump. Bernier set the school record in the event on Jan. 16 a the Judges' home meet, the Reggie Poyau Invitational on Jan. 18 with a leap of 1.67 meters (5 feet, 5 ¾ inches), meeting the NCAA standard by 0.02 of a meter. Bernier also earned All-Open New England honors in the event on Feb. 27 when she finished seventh amongst Division I, II and III competitors. She enters the meet tied with four other competitors as the 13th seed in the event. Bernier will compete at 4 p.m. this Friday.
The other event that Brandeis will enter at the NCAAs is the distance medley relay. The 4,000-meter race, which is run in legs of 1,200, 400, 800 and 1,600 meters, will be run by three Judges who qualified individually for the championships but will only be entered in the relay. The Brandeis relay is seeded eighth, having run a qualifying time of 11:56.60 seconds at the Boston University Valentines Day Invitational. The NCAA race will be held at 6:25 p.m. on Friday evening, the final event of the night.
Senior Beth Pisarik of Chelmsford, Mass., will lead off the relay. She qualified for the NCAA championships in the mile run with the 16th-best time of the season. With her performance of 4:59.11 at the UAA Championships this past weekend, she became just the second woman in school history to run a sub-five minute mile, finishing in third place to earn All-Association honors.
Rookie Anifreed Sinjour of New Bedford, Mass., did not qualify for the NCAAs as an individual in the 400-meter run, but she had a fine debut season. Sinjour finished sixth in the UAA this past weekend with a time of 1:01.79, just two-tenths of a second out of fifth place. Her best time of the season as an individual came on Feb. 6 at the Tufts Stampede, when she posted a time of 1:00.41. Sinjour will run the second leg of the race.
Junior Emily Owen of Syracuse, N.Y., will run the race's third leg. Owen qualified for the NCAAs individually in the 800 at home this past weekend when she placed second in her preliminary heat and third overall at the University Athletic Association championships with a time of 2:15.92 in the prelims and 2:17.60 in the finals, earning All-UAA honors by nine-hundredths of a second.
Junior Grayce Selig of Narberth, Pa., is the Judges' second NCAA qualifier in the mile run and will run the anchor leg. She is the Brandeis record holder in the mile, lowering the school mark three times this season, including at the UAA championships when she finished second with a time of 4:56.12, the seventh-best time in Division III this season. Selig will be competing in her second NCAA championship of 2009-10, having qualified for the cross country championships this fall.
Bernier is a 2006 graduate of Whitman-Hanson Regional High School. She is the daughter of Donald and Kathleen Bernier, Hanson, Mass.
Owen is a 2007 graduate of Westhill High School. She is the daughter of Jonathan and Teresa Owen, Syracuse, N.Y.
Pisarik is a 2006 graduate of Chelmsford High School. She is the daughter of Kristopher and Jennifer Pisarik, Chelmsford, Mass.
Sinjour is a 2009 graduate of New Bedford High School.
Selig is a 2007 graduate of the Springside School in Philadelphia, Pa. She is the daughter of William and Deborah Selig, Narberth, Pa.
For more information on Brandeis women's track and field, please visit our web site at http://www.brandeisjudges.com/sports/spring/wtrack/.
(photos courtesy SportsPix)
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