MEDFORD, Mass. – The Brandeis indoor track and field teams posted three victories and one school record at the 2020 Branwen Smith-King Invitational on Friday and Saturday at Tufts University. The women finished in 7th place with 37 points, while the men were 11th with 22 points.
The school record came from senior Jack Allan (Wrentham, Mass./King Phillip Regional), who won the heptathlon with a score of 4782, raising his own school record by 143 points. Allan won the 60-meter hurdles (8.62 seconds), tied for first in the high jump (1.87m, 6-1 ½) and long jump (6.65m, 21-10) and was second in the pole vault (3.70m, 12-1 ½) and shot put (11.71m, 38-5). He is currently ranked 10th in Division III. Sophomore Dion Morris-Evans (Canal Fulton, Ohio/Northwest) PRed in four different events to finish with a personal-best 4218 points, sixth overall.
The Judges' other winners were on the women's side, where sophomore All-American Devin Hiltunen (Quincy, Mass./North Quincy) was part of both victories. She took the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.42 seconds, winning by nine-hundredths of a second. She also anchored the winning 4x200-meter relay that won with a time of 1:48.07, a full second over the second-place squad. Also on that team were sophomores Anna Touitou (Pleasantville, N.Y./Pleasantville) and Sonali Anderson (Fayetteville, Ga./Whitewater) and rookie Sydney D'Amaddio (Amston, Conn./RHAM). Hiltunen also added a fourth-place finish in the 60-meter dash, lowering her time from 8.14 seconds in the prelims to 8.11 in the semis to a PR of 8.08 in the finals.
Anderson also scored individually. In her second week of racing, Anderson was the runner-up in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 9.48 seconds in the finals after running 9.75 in the prelims. She was six-hundredths of a second out of winning the race.
Junior Andrea Bolduc (Auburn, Mass./Auburn) was seventh in the mile in 5:14.11, while classmate Leinni Valdez (Providence, R.I./Hope) was eighth in the 600 meters in 1:42.59.
On the men's side, in addition to the heptathletes, the top performer was junior Breylen Ammen (Lincoln, Mass./Lincoln-Sudbury) in the pole vault. He finished fifth with a height of 4.30 meters (14-1 ¼). Senior Alec Rodgers (Wakefield, Mass./Wakefield Memorial) was the only individual scorer in running events for the men, placing eighth in the 1,000-meter run with a time of 2:42.02. Rookie Thomas Vandalovsky (Ridgewood, N.J./Ridgewood) threw a p.r. in the shot put with a distance of 13.71 meters (44-11 ¾), good for seventh place.
The men also had the sixth-place 4x400-meter relay, with the squad of sophomores Aaron Portman (Wheeling, Ill./Stevenson), Jamie O'Neil (Auburndale, Mass./Newton North), and Jacob Grant (Rockville Center, N.Y./South Side) and graduate student Jacob Judd (West Hartford, Conn./Conard) running 3:36.65.
Also on the weekend, senior Churchill Perry (Pembroke Pines, Fla./Westminster Academy) ran in the 400-meter dash at the NEICAAA Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center and placed 15th with a time of 50.06 seconds.
The Judges return to Tufts next weekend for the Cupid Invitational.