By Ari Srait
At the ECAC Championships held in Princeton, New Jersey, this past weekend, Northeastern women’s track and field’s 35 points carried them to a ninth place finish out of a field of 49.
The University of Pittsburgh (118), took first place, far ahead of runner-up Georgetown University (68), and third place finisher Syracuse University (55).
While the two-time American East Champions did not win any events, they had some very noteworthy individual performances.
Senior co-captain Ebony Jack placed second in the 100-meter dash, improving on her time each time with each race she ran. Jack finished fourth in the preliminaries, third in the semifinals, and, with her time of 11.89 seconds, captured second place in the finals, just 12 hundredths of a second behind Syracuse graduate student Alison Culey.
Freshman thrower Zara Northover, who won the shot put at the America East Championships, also had a second place finish. Her 14.86-meter toss (48’9″) was just shy of Pittsburgh sophomore Amanda Walker’s winning 15.04 meters (49’4.25″).
Nicole Parker, a junior jumper and hurdler, broke her own school heptathlon record, just two weeks after she had surpassed the previous one. Her 4882 points earned her third place, and shattered the mark of 4752 she had established as the Northeastern record at the conference championships.
Parker also scored points in the high jump, as she and fellow junior Janel Kozlowski both cleared 5’7″, just one inch under Virginia Commonwealth’s Tanika Brown. Brown, a freshman, tied her school record and set a personal best with her 5’8″ jump.
The month of May has been a busy time for the Huskies, as the team opened by defending their conference title, winning their second consecutive America East championship in the process. Northeastern then sent a partial squad to compete at the New England Championships in Durham, N.H., where the team fared well.
Their participation in the ECAC Championships, only their fourth scoring meet of the entire season, will be followed by the NCAA East Regional, to be held Friday and Saturday, May 30-31, in Fairfax, Virginia.
