By Jill Saftel, News Staff
The men’s and women’s track and field teams are in the tail ends of their seasons, with four team members competing in the NCAA East Preliminary Round beginning today in Greensboro, N.C.
Junior Brian Doyle will be competing in the 10K today as well as the 5K on Saturday with teammate Eric Jenkins, who has the best seed time in the East region. Junior Max Milder will be competing in the hammer throw on Saturday as the 16th seed.
For the women’s team, graduate student Nia Howard is the sole representative in North Carolina, competing in the long jump today.
“We’ve got some good bullets and the kids are in a good place mentally and physically,” Director of Track and Field and Cross Country Cathrine Erickson said. “We’re excited to see what happens.”
Erickson said that although only four team members are competing this weekend, they have support from the entire team.
“We’ve got a fundamentally good team from the standpoint of sportsmanship and support,” she said. “You build on that and the talent, and I think it’s going to be exciting.”
The teams most recently competed in the New England Championships May 10 and 11 in North Easton. The women placed fifth of 35 teams while the men placed third of 37. Erickson said she was pleased with the improvement from the women’s team on their indoor finish, which she said was a nice way to end their full team season.
The men’s team finished just a few points behind the second place finisher, Stonehill College.
“The guys have had a phenomenal season. To go back-to-back off the CAA [Colonial Athletic Association] meet, it’s a little more difficult,” she said. “We had some good performances, but we need some more depth in order to sustain two championships back to back like that, but I felt like the team did a great job.”
After this weekend’s competition, the only meets left are the NCAA Championships from June 5 to June 8 and the USA Track & Field National Championships June 19.
“We’re very much looking forward to moving into the national championships, but I think next year we’ve got some good characters that are coming in that are going to help us,” Erickson said. “We’re on our way, we’re already starting, we’ve got our list on what we’re doing for recruits next year and we’re ahead of the game. The program is going to grow and the team is very excited about that.”
