Magill runs top-20 time in 5K to highlight track's weekend

Erin Magill '22 (Photo by Sportspix.com / from 2020 season_)
Erin Magill '22 (Photo by Sportspix.com / from 2020 season_)

The Brandeis University indoor track and field teams ran at a pair of meets this weekend, splitting the squad between Boston University for the David Hemery Valentines Classic and MIT for the Gordon Kelly Invitational. Both meets were nonscoring.

At BU, the top performances of the weekend came from the women on Friday. Senior Erin Magill (Moretown, Vt. / Harwood Union) won the unseeded 5,000-meter run with a personal-best time of 17:24.24, taking nearly 40 second off her previous career-best. The cross-country All-American is now ranked 16th in Division III in the event, with the top 20 in the nation earning a spot at the NCAA Division III Championships.

Also posting a time that is among the top 50 in the nation was senior Natalie Hattan (Sugar Land, Texas / Clements) in the mile run. Hattan finished 110th at the meet in the event, but her time of 5:04.76, which was third in her heat and seventh in Division III at the meet, is now ranked 38th nationally.

Senior Sonali Anderson (Fayetteville, Ga. / Whitewater) also had a fine performance in the 60-meter hurdles, placing 15th in the unseeded version of the event with a time of 9.53 seconds. It was 0.12 off her season-best performance.

Senior Devin Hiltunen (Quincy, Mass./North Quincy) had a season-best performance in the 200-meter dash with a time of 1:00.32, which was 108th overall at the meet, 19th among D3 runners at the meet.

Other season-bests came from junior Victoria Morrongiello (Staten Island, N.Y. / Susan E. Wagner) in the 800-meter run, with a time of 2:20.71, which was third in her heat and 100th overall, and first-year Kayla DiBenedetto (Andover, Mass. / Andover) in the 1000-meter run with a time of 3:10.86, which was good for 43rd place.

For the men, competing at BU on Saturday, senior Matthew Driben (Reading, Pa./Wyomissing) ran his first 5000-meter run of the season, finishing in 48th place in the unseeded race with a time of 15:14.30. Classmate Reese Farquhar (Newton, Mass./Newton North) was 28th overall in the unseeded 60-meter dash with a time o 7.28 seconds, 13th among D3 runners and 0.1 off his season-best time.

Senior Jamie O'Neil (Auburndale, Mass./Newton North) ran a season-best in the 400-meter dash with a time of 51.42 seconds, placing him 121st overall in the event, 37th in Division 3. O'Neil was also 118th in the 200 meters with a time of 22.99 seconds.

Sophomore Willem Goff (Pelham, Mass. / Amherst Regional) ran the team's best 1,000-meter run of the season with a time of 2:37.15, good for 47th overall and 14th in Division 3. First-year runner Samuel Kim (La Jolla, Calif. / Phillips Exeter (N.H.)) placed 118th in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:57.01, three seconds better than his previous season's best and breaking 2:00 for the first time in competition.

Over at MIT, the Judges focused on field events, though junior Taylor Diamond (Roslyn Heights, N.Y. / Roslyn) placed fourth in the 800m with a time of 2:08.66 and first-year Dashiell Janicki (New York, N.Y. / HS for Math Science and Engineering at City College) was ninth in the 3000m in 9:50.85.

In the field, the highest finish for the Judges came from first-year Lin Lin Hutchinson (Portland, Ore. / Ida B. Wells), who placed fifth in the triple jump with a distance of 11.67 meters (38-3 ½). Senior Dion Morris-Evans () placed 12th in the high jump with a height of 1.75m (5-8 ¾).

On the women's side, sophomore Smiley Huynh (Bronx, N.Y. / Bronx H.S. of Science) competed in three events for the Judges. She was ninth in the 60-meter dash with a time of 8.24 seconds, eighth in the pole vault with a height of 3.30 meters (10-10), and 11th in the long jump at 4.66 meters (15-3 ½). Sophomore Zada Forde () placed eighth in the 3000m with a time of 11:12.91.

The Judges head to Maine next weekend for the Bowdoin Invitational.