The Johns Hopkins University men's and women's indoor track & field teams wrapped up their seasons this past weekend at the Centennial Conference championships, which were held at Haverford College. After a season full of successful meets, the Blue Jays had hoped for the conferences to be the culmination of all their hard work; however, this proved not to be the case. While some athletes excelled individually, the team as a whole did not fare as well. The women improved upon last year's point total and placing. However, head coach Bobby Van Allen felt as if they still had a lot of potential to do better. The men scored 26 points for a ninth place finish.
"We had a lot of guys really step it up, but we are a much better team than last place," said Van Allen.
Despite the lack of depth in the meet, many of the individuals who competed had record-breaking performances. The most noticeable record of the meet came from senior co-captain Andrea King, who once again broke the Hopkins school record in the shot put with a throw of 39'3/4". King not only won her event, but she really separated herself from the other throwers in the conference. King has broken her own school records at multiple points throughout the year. Sophomore Katie Finnigan, who has had a successful season, broke the school record for her triple jump, where she jumped 10.70 meters. Finnigan finished third in the event.
"When Katie perfects her steps and her mark on the board, and she can just worry about the jump, she'll easily soar 36 feet," said Van Allen.
Megan Clarke broke the freshman school record in the 400-meter run with a time of 64.33. "Megan has been improving each and every meet now and I think she is really ready to have some huge break through in the outdoor season," according to Van Allen.
Sophomore Joanna Cohen set a personal record in the 55-meter dash, with a time of 7.79 and finished a couple of seconds out of third place in the event. Cohen, along with sophomore Nancy Yu dropped two seconds off their 200-meter times in both the 4 x 200-meter relay and the open 200-meter race. The 4 x 200 relay was the second fastest time ever. The women's 4 x 400-meter relay, comprised of junior Hannah Bracken, freshman Kaitlyn Flynn, Clarke, and sophomore Kathy Cain, also broke the school record for the event.
Senior co-captain Aline Bernard, who had had a successful season thus far, had an off weekend in Haverford in her 5000-meter run.
"Aline just didn't have it this weekend in the 5k. She has been running outstanding races all year, so this was the first let down. It came at the wrong time," Van Allen said. "She'll rebound. She's one of the fiercest competitors I've ever worked with, so she'll be back up at the top of the conference outdoors."
On the men's side, Jason Chiang broke the freshman record in the 3000-meter run. "Chiang had this goal set in his mind for the last several months, and broke the record running 9:23.58 winning his section," said Van Allen.
Sophomore Gabe Tonkin also won his section of the 5k, and finished 10th overall in a time of 15:58.78. The time was a 32 second improvement of Tonkin's earlier 5k personal record, and eight seconds faster than his all- time personal record, indoor or outdoors. One of the most surprising performances of the meet came in the 55-meter hurdles, in which Hopkins qualified three athletes to the finals. Freshman Jason Dubyoski, in just his second meet of the year, finished fourth overall with a time of 8.24 in the hurdle event.
"Jason finishing fourth was a better improvement than I expected place wise, although I knew he was capable of running that time," said Van Allen. He was just one one hundredth of a second out of 3rd place. Sophomores Tim Pruiett and Tai Kobayashi also ran well to qualify for the finals and finished sixth and eighth respectively in the hurdles event. Senior Ben Stopper also improved his long jump, and finished eighth overall.
The Hopkins team had some tough distractions to deal with this week, which couldn't have come at a worse time for the team. The disappearance of sophomore high jumper Nick Culbertson has really taken a toll on his teammates and his coach. "It's been tough. I think we really tried to focus on the meet, but our thoughts and prayers still were on Nick. I know the high jumpers definitely felt out of place without Nick there. He is definitely missed."
