4x400 team, Trombly smash school records

They just keep getting faster and faster, and the records just keep falling. Saturday, the women's indoor track and field team smashed the school 4x400 relay record and, in the process beat 2003 national indoor champ Wheaton for the second straight week to become the fastest Division III team in the nation in that race.

The team made up by sophomore Rachel Bloom, junior Sika Henry and senior quad-captains Emily Bersin and Jess Trombly (3:53.94) broke the Tufts record set in 2000 by Caitlin Murphy, Sarah Deeb, Jenny Ng and Missy Bargmann (3:55.61) by nearly two seconds and recorded its second successive national provisional time after a 3:58.76 run last week at home. The time was just 0.14 seconds short of automatic qualification for the national championships at the University of Wisconsin in mid-March.

The foursome finished fifth in the event at the two-day Division I St. Valentine's Invitational at Boston University, and was surpassed by just four Division I schools. The team should have no trouble reaching nationals, despite only recording a provisional qualifying time.

"I don't think nine teams will run faster than that," coach Kristen Morwick said. "I don't think people realize what a great performance that was. They destroyed a very good school record. It was really exciting, especially against all Division I competition, except for Wheaton. You're taking a bunch of kids from Tufts who are generally the smart kids and not going to school for athletics. It was awesome."

"A couple of us had [personal records] and now we're first in the country, so that's very cool," Trombly added. "They made the auto qualification a lot harder this year, but we're pretty positive that that time will get in, [and] I think we can still run faster."

Trombly also upgraded her status from "provisional" to "automatic" in the 400 meters with a 56.26-second blitz, breaking her own school record and shaving almost two and a half seconds off her provisional time recorded on January 24 at the Gantcher Center. Trombly finished fifth in the event, which was won by Foy Williams (53.59) of Ontario's Gladstone Athletic Club. Trombly is also provisionally qualified in the 55 meter hurdles (8:58).

"It was a really fast track because it was a banked track, and it was a lot better running against a lot of competition," Trombly said. "I had a couple people ahead of me in the 400 that I could just run behind and chase after them. It's a lot easier to run fast when you have that competition right with you."

Emily Bersin joined Trombly with an impressive 400 performance, qualifying for All-New England's with a career-best 1:00.00 and edging out Dartmouth's Caitlin Sherry by 0.18 seconds to win her heat. On Friday night, the distance medley relay (DMR) team of senior quad-captain Lauren Caputo, sophomore Megan Sears and freshmen Samantha Moland and Sarah Crispin notched the third-fastest time in Tufts history (12:21.23) to improve its ECAC-qualifying time, narrowly missing national provisional time by a second.

"Everyone ran really well at that meet," Morwick said. "[The DMR runners] ran great individual legs. Caputo ran a PR in the mile, Crispin ran a PR in the 800, Megan Sears ran a PR in the 400, so that was also a fantastic relay."

Back on their home rubber at the Tufts Stampede on Saturday, 11 Jumbos either qualified or improved their qualifying positions for upcoming championship meets. Tufts tore up the synthetic track in its final home indoor meet with several notable performances.

Sophomore Rebecca Ades (4:51.40) won the 1500 by nearly two seconds over Trinity's Kristina Miner to join teammate and senior quad-captain Lauren Caputo as All-New England qualifiers in the event. It was a personal best by nearly eight seconds for Ades, who came from the middle of a pack of 15 runners to take the lead on the final home stretch.

"I just went out and tried to hit my splits, and it was really surprising how it all turned out. I knew [Trinity's Miner] had a really good seed time, but I didn't really know about anyone else in the race," Ades said. "I got her on the last turn, in the last hundred meters. I think this race was a breakthrough race."

Senior Lauren Dunn (10:44.98) clocked in with a ten-second PR in the 3000 to qualify for ECAC's, while senior quad-captain Katie Higley also reached ECAC's with a 1:41.58 600 run. Freshman Sade Campbell (1.52 meters) also hit the Division III qualifying mark in the high jump.

Senior Shushanna Mignott placed second in both long (4.93m) and triple jump (10.62m), with season bests in both events. After a slow start, Mignott has come on strongly in both events and is focused on continuing that trend, despite slightly hurting her leg in the triple jump with an awkward landing.

"I've just been practicing on my form and concentrating more," Mignott said. "Recently my mark has been better so I think that helps me when I jump. Right now, the most important thing is to stay healthy. It's not the best [season] I've had, but I didn't compete last year because I went abroad so I'm still working my way back to top shape."

The team will continue to train hard this week in the lead up to the New England Division III Championships at MIT this Saturday.

"We might cut back a little bit on people [for whom] this will be their last meet, but we're not going to taper too much for this meet," Morwick said. "We're shooting for top two at New England's."