After a successful season, it has come down to the final stretch for the Johns Hopkins men's and women's indoor track and field team. After six meets over the past two and a half months, the Blue Jays are confident heading into this weekend's Centennial Conference Championships, which will be hosted by Haverford College. According to Head Coach Bobby Van Allen, "We have a good chance to really be in the top five this year -- something we haven't done on the women's side yet."
This past weekend marked the final meet of the regular season, when the Blue Jays competed in two meets. While part of the team was sent to compete at Haverford College in the Keough Invitational, the rest of the team competed in an intrasquad meet. The intrasquad event was "just a fun meet for our team. We had a great time, but there aren't any results for it," said Van Allen.
At the Invitational, Hopkins was able to put forth a strong performance. On the women's team, sophomore Katie Finnigan once again dominated the high jump event, placing first with a jump of 4'10". Sophomore Ilolochika Emuh continued to run well in the 55-meter hurdle event. Van Allen thinks Emuh "should be contending for a top three finish at the Conference Championships in that event." Freshman Megan Clarke and sophomore Kathy Cain also performed well in the 400-meter event, running their fastest times of the year, with times of 1:04.90 and 1:06.12, respectively. Sophomore Joanna Cohen continued to post solid finishes with a 55-meter dash time of 8.06, which earned her a sixth place finish in the event. Senior Megan Carr pole-vaulted her way to a tie for fourth place with a height of 8'0".
For the men's team, freshman Jason Dubyoski and sophomore Shane Olaleye had terrific meets. Olaleye won his section of the 400-meter dash and placed sixth overall with a time of 52.26, while Dubyoski won his section of the hurdle event with a time of 8.51.
According to Van Allen, "Shane should be a contender for a top three finish in the 400-meters at conferences, and Jason should be able to score in several events, in particular the hurdles and the dash."
The high jumping squad also faired well in the meet with all three jumpers, freshman Matt Smith and sophomores Nick Culberlson and Tai Kobayashi tying for second place with jumps of 5'8". The pole vaulting duo of junior Pete Dixon, and sophomore Ted Esborn tied for fourth in the event by vaulting 11'6" each.
As the Blue Jays prepare for Conferences, the team will be missing some runners due to injuries. Senior Captain Alex Gochal, will be held of out of the indoor championships, so he can be healthy for outdoors and hopefully have a strong showing there. The Blue Jays are expecting heavy competition at Conferences, especially from the hostsom team, Haverford. "Haverford will be tough on both the men's and the women's side, along with Dickinson and Gettysburg. They traditionally put up a good fight each and every year," said Van Allen.
Beyond conferences, some of the Blue Jays are looking to compete in the NCAA championships, which are to be held in Whitewater Wisconsin on March 5 and 6. Van Allen believes "a couple people have chances of qualifying for NCAAs. Ilolochika in the Hurdles and Finnigan in the Triple Jump, both can see that NCAA mark within sight. If everything happens perfectly, they'll both qualify, because they definitely have the talent to do so."
