With one week before nationals, Geneseo’s indoor men’s and women’s track and field teams traveled to Tufts University on March 2 to compete in the Last Chance Meet.
The meet provided athletes the opportunity to cut off those last few seconds or add those couple inches in order to qualify for nationals, and the atmosphere was anything but tense. “[Tufts] very much catered to the student-athlete,” head coach Dave Prevosti said, noting music during events and pacesetters to ensure fast races.
As it has all year, the women’s distance medley relay team performed exceptionally well. This time out, the team, comprised of graduate student Alyssa Smith, senior Cailin Kowalewski, junior Allison Hoh and sophomore Keira Wood won the race with a time of 11 minutes and 40 seconds, breaking the school record and becoming the second-fastest DMR team in Division III.
“We traded leads [with the second-place team] throughout and that’s exactly what you want,” Prevosti said. “It wasn’t until the end when [Smith] really pulled away.”
Prevosti also praised Hoh for cutting two seconds off of her personal best in the 400-meter leg of the race, improving to 58.91.
Perhaps inspired by their teammates’ performance, the men’s distance medley relay team also won its race, finishing in 9:56. The team of seniors Chris Carter, Alex Brimstein and Jesse Cleary-Krell and junior Tony George became the third-fastest DMR team in Geneseo history as well as the fastest Division III team this season. Prevosti said that the first three runners kept the Knights near the lead and that Brimstein finished off the race well when he came on to run.
“[Brimstein] was the story,” Prevosti said. “He ran a 4:08 mile, which is phenomenal.”
In other women’s action, Kowalewski finished in fourth place in the 800-meter run and freshman Shannon Murphy was sixth in the mile run.
On the men’s side, freshman Brendan Wortner placed fourth in the 3,000-meter run, sophomore Cohen Miles-Rath took seventh in the 5,000-meter run, freshman Adrian Bergere claimed second place in the high jump, junior Liam Collins earned third place in the triple jump and senior Brendan Murphy finished in seventh place in the weight throw.
The national meet will take place on March 8 and 9 in North Central, Ill. Geneseo is sending both the men’s and women’s DMR teams to compete.
“The expectations are that we will be All-Americans; the hopes are that we will be national champions,” Prevosti said