SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – The Brandeis University track and field team got off to a fine start in their 2021-22 campaign today at Springfield College, picking up eight wins on the day and several more second-place finishes.
Senior Devin Hiltunen (Quincy, Mass./North Quincy) was the Judges' top performer on the day, with a pair of victories. She took the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.20 seconds, winning by more than three-quarters of a second. It was the sixth-fastest 200 time of the weekend, as of Saturday. Hiltunen also won the 400-meter dash in 1:01.74, eighth-fastest in D3 this weekend. She defeated teammate Yahni Lapa (West Newton, Mass. / Newton North) by two full seconds.
First-year runner Olivia Zarzycki captured the 600-meters with a time of 1:45.45, just over a second ahead of classmate Christina McPhillips (Narragansett, R.I.), while junior Victoria Morriongiello (Staten Island, N.Y. / Susan E. Wagner) captured the 1000-meter run ahead of senior Elizabeth Dunphy (Cary, N.C. / Cary) with times of 3:17.34 and 3:23.62. Sophomore Lizzy Reynolds (Winchester, Mass. / Winchester) rounded out the individual winners for the day with a win in the mile run with a time of 5:38.17, a nine-second gap before second place.
The Judges also won the 4x400-meter relay on the women's side, as the quarter of Lapa, Zarzycki, sophomore Alya Campbell (Eastchester, N.Y. / Eastchester) and senior Sonali Anderson (Fayetteville, Ga, / Whitewater) won in 4:19.34, dominating the runners-up from Union by 17 seconds.
Sophomore Smiley Huynh (Bronx, N.Y.) was the runner-up in both the pole vault (3.10 meters) and the long jump (5.27m) to lead the field competitors.
On the men's side, senior Reese Farquar (Newton, Mass. / Newton North) grabbed a win in the 200-meter dash as well with a time of 23.28 seconds, edging his opponent from Division II American International by one-hundredth of a second. Senior Jacob Grant (Rockville Center, N.Y. / South Side) defeated rookie Dylan Whalen (Stow, Mass./Nashoba Regional) by four seconds to win the 1,000-meter run.
Senior Jamie O'Neill (Auburndale, Mass. / Newton North) finished second in both the 400-meter run with a time of 53.03 seconds, while also leading off the second-place 4x400-meter relay with Farquar, rookie Dean Carey (New York, N.Y. / Stuyvesant) and Grant. The four posted a time of 3:34.27, just short of the winning time.
Junior Thomas Vandalovsky (Ridgewood, N.J. / Ridgewood) had a fine start in the throwing events, placing second in the shot put (13.19 meters) and the 35-pound weight throw (13.81 meters).