With the indoor track and field nationals fast approaching, Washington University delivered a dominant weekend in the UAA championships, winning nine events and 19 top-five finishes. The glut of strong performances in Waltham, Mass. netted the Bears 159 points, 50 more than the runner-up University of Chicago. The women’s team has now won back-to-back conference indoor titles.
Despite being the only UAA team to earn a top-25 billing at any point this season from the U.S. Track and Field & Cross Country Coaches Association, the men’s team’s success was much more measured, winning three events on the way to a fourth-place finish. Carnegie Mellon University won the overall men’s title, with 116.33 points, while Emory University (80), Chicago (77.33) and Wash. U. (74.33) bunched up behind. This finish snaps the men’s team’s three-year UAA indoor winning streak.
Both teams will return to action next weekend with the Polar Bear Last Chance Meet, Friday in Ada, Ohio before heading out to Stevens Point, Wis. the next day for the Point Last Chance Meet. After that, it’s on to the NCAA Indoor Championships.
Skyler Kessler | Student LifeBoth men’s and women’s track and field competed this weekend
at the UAA Indoor Track and Field Championships. The women won the championship, while the men finished in fourth.
Women
Senior Rebecca Ridderhoff won the 400-meter (56.69) on Sunday, a day after setting the UAA record in the preliminaries with a time of 56.35. Senior Kelli Hancock netted third place in the event, 1.40 seconds behind Ridderhoff at 58.09.
Hancock and Ridderhoff teamed up with seniors Ashley Knudson and Daisy Ogede to completely outstrip the rest of the UAA field in the 4×400-meter relay. The quartet’s time of 3:48.32 was nearly nine seconds faster than second-place Emory. The pace was also the best in Division III by well over a two and a half second margin.
Ogede was her usual nationally competitive self in her individual events as well. She won the 55-meter hurdles (8.16), 55-meter dash (7.12) and 200-meter (24.92). After adjusting the 55m hurdles and 55m dash to a standard 60m length, all three of Ogede’s individual times rank third-best in Division III this year.
Ridderhoff netted a pair of runner-up finishes in the 200-meter and 55-meter hurdles, finishing just behind Ogede at 25.62 and 8.31 respectively. Ridderhoff’s times in the hurdles and 200-meter were also the eighth-best and ninth-best in Division III this year.
Junior Annalise Wagner earned another win for the Bears in the 800m (2:12.50) and was closely followed by Kudson at 2:12.74. Continuing the trend of nationally competitive times this weekend, Wagner and Knudson now rank fourth and fifth in Division III.
Junior Alison Lindsay rounded out the top performances with a first-place finish, school record and second-best Division III time in the 3000-meter (9:44.92).
A day earlier on Saturday, the Bears earned a pair of victories in the distance medley relay (DMR) and pole vault. Hancock was again in the mix for the DMR, this time joined by junior Audrey Western and freshman Sara Mesiano. The group’s 12:13.45 time ranks as the 12th-best time in Division III this season.
Sophomore Heidi Nassos won the vault with a high of 3.77 meters.
Junior Aly Wayne just missed the podium on Saturday in the 5000-meter, finishing second to a runner from the University of Chicago.
Men
While the men’s team was less successful in getting to the podium this weekend, they still won eight events and saw a pair of promising underclassmen performances on Sunday.
The Bears’ first victory came Sunday in the DMR. Senior Deko Ricketts, freshman Nick Matteucci, senior Mike Sullivan and junior Thomas Gales combined to finish at 10:03.76. The next day, Ricketts won the 800-meter in 1:52.09, just a hundredth of a second slower than the top time in Division III.
To round out the best performances for the Bears, Matteucci finished with a runner-up time in the one mile (4:14.09), less than a second out of first, while sophomore Elvir Sarajlic earned second place by a similar margin in the 3000m run (8:28.70).