Indoor Track Ends Season At IC4A, ECAC Championships
Schedule │ Performance List │ Live Results
ALBANY, N.Y. - One final meet remains for the University at Albany indoor track & field program for the 2015 season. The Great Danes will return to Boston University's Track and Tennis Center for the second consecutive week, and the third time this season, to compete in the IC4A and ECAC Indoor Championships, which start Friday and run through Sunday.
Similar to the format of the America East Championships, the men's preliminary events will be contested in their entirety on Saturday, the first full day of competition, and will be followed by the women's preliminary events in Saturday's afternoon session. On Sunday, the men's and women's finals will alternate by event. The women's pentathlon and men's heptathlon will being on Friday, with the heptathlon concluding on Saturday.
“As the last meet on the schedule, we're looking for quality over quantity,” said Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Roberto Vives. “Most of the student-athletes are only in one event, so we're hoping they can come out with their best performances of the season. And with high quality performance comes high team finishes.”
With such a large, high-quality fields competing this weekend, it doesn't take as many points to win a team title as it does at conference championships. Last season, the men tied for second with Connecticut, scoring 54 points, about a quarter of the points they scored at America East Championships. The women placed sixth, scoring 31 points, six times less than their conference championship point total. Defending team champions are the Cornell men, who scored 76 points last year, and the Connecticut women, who scored 75 points.
“If we can finish in the top three in a couple of events we should be in the running for the team titles,” said Vives. “We're well represented in a lot of events, and hopefully that depth and breadth can translate to top-three team finishes for the men and the women.”
Thirty-six Great Danes have qualified for IC4A or ECAC Championships in individual events. Additionally, UAlbany will field teams in all three of the women's relay events. In total, 41 UAlbany student-athletes will make the trip, between individual competitors and the relay pools. The men qualified a 4x400 and distance medley relay as well, but will not run either due to injuries.
The injuries to Youssef Benzamia and John DeLallo have removed them from their open events, the 400 and the 1,000 respectively, as well as comprised their relay teams, the 4x400 and DMR respectively. Because of this, the men will not run the relays, opting instead to wait until both teams are fully healthy and ready to compete. Additionally, Michelle Anthony will sit out her second consecutive weekend with an injury, after missing USA Indoor Nationals in the 60 hurdles last weekend.
“With the injuries we have now, we're trying to be smart, and prepare for when it counts,” said Vives. “We know the men's relays have potential, so there's no point in running them now when they're not at full strength.”
A total of 11 student-athletes, five men and six women, have performances that rank within the top-10 in the IC4A or ECAC in their events. Taariq Jones ranks ninth in the 400 at 47.71. Jason Tomlinson ranks eighth in the 500 with a flat track converted time of 1:03.12. Alexander Bowen leads the high jump at 7'-1.75”. Matthew Campbell is tied for second in the high jump at 7'-0.5”. Jonathan Eustache ranks ninth in the weight throw at 64'-5.25”. On the women's side, Grace Claxton ranks in two events. She is third in the 400 at 53.59 and ninth in the 500 with a flat track converted time of 1:13.29. Anthony, who is out with an injury, ranks tied for second in the 60 hurdles at 8.38. Aiyanna James ranks tied for 10th in the long jump at 19'-1.5”. Alexx Baum ranks seventh in the triple jump at 40'-7.75”. Solène Bastien ranks ninth in the triple jump at 40'-4.25”. Finally, Briana Cherry-Bronson ranks second in the weight throw at 65'-6.75”.
Rankings may not accurately reflect final seeding for the field, as not everyone will compete in all of the events for which they qualified, or some teams may choose to not make the trip at all. Claxton is one example. Despite ranking highly in both the 400 and the 500, she will forego the 500 so she can effectively run the 400 and the 4x400 relay. Paige Vadnais is another example. She is seeded ninth out of 15 competitors in the pentathlon, despite ranking outside the top-23 in terms of ECAC-eligible performances.
IC4A and ECAC Championships come at an odd time in the overall track season, where some of the student-athletes are still competing while others are deep into the transition phase for the outdoor season. But the new approach the coaching staff has taken this year with training and competition has accounted for the disparate nature in which the team finds itself.
“This is the last indoor event,” Vives said, “and it is the culmination of the indoor championship season. But it also serves as a momentum builder for outdoor. We would like to carry over to outdoor our performances from this weekend, particularly as far as regional qualifying marks are concerned. With outdoor two weeks away, we'd like to use the first two meets we have in warm weather to hit as many regional qualifying standards as we can while we're still sharp from indoor. Then we can pull back a bit to start preparing to peak for outdoor championships.”
To that point, performances from this weekend are eligible for consideration for big outdoor meets like Penn Relays, America East Outdoor Championships, and IC4A and ECAC Outdoor Championships. Additionally, the short turnaround between seasons offers the opportunity for the student-athletes to capitalize on early-season, warm-weather meets to hit qualifying marks before returning to the Northeast where the weather can play more of an inhibiting factor.
“Our goal for outdoor is to get 20 student-athletes between the men's and women's teams to qualify for regional championships” said Vives. “So while we're focusing on this meet now, we're also keeping the end of the year in mind.”
“Ultimately, I want people to finish with seasonal and personal bests,” Vives continued. “I think we're in a good place right now, and we have one final opportunity to focus on individual performances.”
The meet begins on Friday, March 6 at 3:00 p.m. exclusively with the multis events. The women's pentathlon begins first, followed by the first four events of the men's heptathlon at 3:30 p.m. Events on Saturday, March 7 begin at 9:45 a.m. with the final three events of the men's heptathlon. At 10:00 a.m., the men's trial events begin with the 60 hurdles, long jump, and weight throw. The women's trial events are scheduled to begin at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, with the 60 hurdles, long jump, weight throw, and also the pole vault. Final events contested on Saturday include the long jump, weight throw, high jump, 5,000, and women's pole vault. Sunday's finals begin at 9:30 a.m. with the men's triple jump and women's shot put. Track events begin at 10:00 a.m. with the women's unseeded 3,000.
