Men
The record-breaking relay featured senior captains Steve Corsello and Tommy Moore, Ben Scheetz ’12 and Will Yochum ’11. Their time of 9:49.11 destroyed the previous Div. III record of 9:53.16. The Jeffs left their opponents in the dust, with runner-up Southern Connecticut State (Div. II) coming two seconds behind.
Corsello kicked off the relay with the 1,200-meter leg, followed by Moore in the 400-meter. Scheetz came through for Jeffs in the 800-meter. He ran a 1:52.28 to win this event at the Boston Indoor Games but bested that time by three seconds for the relay. He put Yochum in a good position to bring the team home first. Yochum finished the relay off with a 4:08 in the mile.
Corsello, Moore and Scheetz were part of the distance medley relay that took fifth place in last year’s NCAA Indoor Championships. With the addition of Yochum this year, the team will be a strong contender to win the national title.
The men’s 4x400 relay came in seventh place. Senior captain Andre Gary ran with Matt Melton ’14, Andrew Reed ’11 and Scheetz for a time of 3:17.64. Scheetz was strong in his individual events as well. He finished second out of 160 runners in the 400-meter dash with a 47.47. Corsello placed sixteenth in a field of 199 runners in the mile with a 4:07.48, and Yochum came in fourteenth in the 5,000-meter run with a 14:38.26. Chris Eaton ’11 came in seventh in the weight throw with a throw of 17.10 meters.
Corsello said he thought the meet was an “excellent showing overall” and credits the team’s strong performances to a “very solid month and a half or so of training and focus.”
Women
On the women’s side, Sullivan came in sixteenth out of 147 competitors in the mile run. Her remarkable time of 4:56.62 set her apart as only one of two Div.-III runners to finish under five minutes. Sullivan said she appreciated the tough competition because “the size and quality of Valentine means there is always someone running near you, which makes it easy to be competitive and have some very solid performances.”
Sophomore Ali Simeone was also one of the top Div. III finishers in her event. She came in fourteenth out of a field of 63 in the 5k with a time of 17:18.63. First-year Naomi Bates was a strong competitor in the field events, placing sixteenth out of 32 in the triple jump. Sullivan said the meet results “bode very well for the next few weeks as we prepare for the championship season.”
The Track and Field teams will try to sprint past the opposition at the Div. III New England Championships next Friday. The men will compete at Springfield, while the women will run at MIT.