The Northeastern track program placed two competitors at the NCAA championship meet June 11-14, giving coach Sherman Hart a tangible sign that the team is gaining steam as a national force.
“We’ve definitely arrived as an eastern power,” he said. “We’re headed in the right direction, and probably going faster than I thought we would’ve.”
NU senior Vinny Tortorella capped a remarkable career with a seventh place finish in the hammer throw with a personal record toss of 217 feet, 5 inches.
NU sophomore Ahndraea Allen polished off her 2002-03 resume with flair, placing 28th in the 400-meter-run (an event she set both the indoor and outdoor school records in this season on multiple occasions). Her time of 54.55 is over a second slower than her top time of the year, a 53.14 she ran in the NCAA East Regional trials.
“I expected Vinny to be there, but I think Ahndraea got there a year early as far as what we expected,” Hart said.
Tortorella, a four-year standby for the Huntington club, will be sorely missed.
“He’s just one of these athletes that’s just a great all-around athlete,” Hart said. “We knew what we were going to get from Vinny from day one, and he never let us down. It’ll be tough to not have those automatic points from Vinny, but with the other throwers we have [Derek Anderson and Zara Northover] the throwing events aren’t dead yet.”
Allen will have two more cracks at the national meet.
“It was a learning experience for her,” Hart said. “For her to get it while she’s that young is huge. It was the biggest meet she’s ever ran in, and I think she might’ve gotten lost in it a bit. Now, she’s telling me she’s going to win it. She knows what to expect now.”
Tortorella had no such problems with the venue.
“Vinny comes into a meet like that and isn’t fazed a bit,” Hart said. “He’s been in the national spotlight at the high school level so it wasn’t an issue for him like it was for Ahndraea.”
Allen has already qualified for the 2006 Olympic trials, which will take place in Sacramento next year about a month after the NCAA championship meet. For the sprinter, a long season only gets longer.
Northeastern track achieved tremendous progress last year, but Hart yearns for more. Namely, an ECAC championship trophy, where the Dogs finished ninth last year.
“Our first goal is to get in the top ten at the East Regionals, and to do that we’ll probably have to have five or six girls to make nationals,” Hart said. “Then, we want to have the women try and win the East [ECAC]. Even in outdoors, we had a bad day and still got in the top ten.”
With the loss of Tortorella and women’s four-year stars Ebony Jack and Joanne Merlain, the Huskies will need a step up in leadership from the underclassmen.
“The good thing about the women and the men is that they are both very young teams,” Hart said. “The impact for this year will be losing some of that leadership, but we’ve got some young kids that will step up to the plate. We definitely lose great ones in terms of Ebony and Joanne, though.
“I feel like the team has matured a lot,” Hart said. “I’ve had individual meetings with most of them. The biggest problem for a majority of them was the difference between high school and college track seasons. In high school you get a couple of weeks off between meets and that’s just not the case in college. Now they know better how to prepare for the work load and the travel. All our freshmen and sophomores are really experienced. They can help ease the new freshmen in, too. They tell them, ‘This is what’s going to happen, here’s how you’ll feel and everything will be OK.’ ”
And what a class they will welcome. Here’s some names Husky track fans will need to remember: Tanya Osborne, Allison Warren, and Aquilla Williams-Judge.
According to Hart, Osborne, a 400 and 800 runner can already run times comparable with Allen. Warren will be a top high jumper and 400 hundred runner.
And then there’s Williams-Judge. The athlete will transfer from Wheaton College, where she was a Division 3 NCAA champion as a freshman.
“Aquilla can pretty much do anything she wants,” Hart said. “She’s probably the best of our incoming recruits. She can hurdle, do the long and triple jump. She’s really just coming home. I’ve known her for most of her life and Division 3 just wasn’t as challenging as she thought it would be.”
The men’s team isn’t short on star-studded recruits, either.
Three of the four runners from Fordham Prep’s national record breaking high school sprint medley will pull on Husky black for Hart. Fordham Prep is also where standout sprinter Idris Payne attended high school.
