Both the men’s and women’s track and field teams are sprinting into their outdoor seasons this week, reaching the pinnacle of a near yearlong track competition season. After coming off multiple successful indoor seasons, in which four Violets made it to the NCAA Division III indoor national championships, the year isn’t over yet — there’s a whole new series of meets on a completely different type of track.
Every athlete that competed at the indoor championships from March 15-16, in Rochester, NY, earned Second Team All-America Honors in their respective distance events: junior Janie Cooper, senior Ryan Tobin, graduate student Katherine Cohran and sophomore Josephine Dziedzic. In the 3000m event, Cooper and Tobin placed 14th and 10th, respectively, while Cohran and Dziedzic finished 11th and 13th in the 5000m event.
“Although the track team is small, we scored the most amount of points at conference in a few years,” said senior sprinter Matt Marcelo, regarding this year’s indoor performance. With a roster of 26 on the women’s and 45 on the men’s, the overwhelming majority of the current team — on both sides — are distance runners. A large majority of the track and field roster overlaps with those of the fall cross country teams.
“The 5K race for [Dziedzic and Cohran] was one to watch,” Cooper said. “The courage both of those ladies took to put themselves in a race that they qualified for at the last minute — It makes you emotional watching. [Tobin], in both his 5K and 3K — the grit and emotion he puts into every race is unbelievable.”
Outdoor season is often viewed by coaches and runners as the main season for track and field, and this is particularly true for sprinters and field athletes who only run in a few indoor meets. Indoor tracks are purely a warm-up to get ready for the quicker outdoor track, while outdoor tracks bring flatter, warmer and faster platforms.
“I think what I’m striving for the most is the 4x100m relay school record,” Marcelo said. “With our season opener being only [0.51 seconds] away from it, I believe we have a chance. The track team hasn’t looked this good in a while, and I’m excited to see what we have in store.”
For distance runners, however, there’s not just a double-headed, back-to-back track season, but an entire cross-country season that precedes the two. Most distance runners — deemed as any athlete that runs over 800m — will run for all three seasons at the D-III level.
“We don’t just want to do well at outdoors but are already looking at next season’s cross country,” Cooper said. “As a whole, we all came up a little short — goals to work on for sure. Heading into the outdoor season, our team will continue to build on our fitness at the foundational level.”
Outdoor season also brings the obstacle of finding practice space in Manhattan. Without the reserved indoor track at The Armory, the teams share public space with runners and walkers on the John V. Lindsay East River Park each day. Kai Aravena, junior shot put and javelin thrower, noted that their team of seven throwers don’t have a field big enough to throw javelin, so he often has to time his throws to not hit members of the public while throwing — that is, if he gets to throw at all.
“The team definitely enjoys the outdoor season much more than indoor,” Aravena said. “I’m absolutely looking forward to our conference meet. I always say track and field is an individual sport disguised as a team sport, but when it comes time for a conference meet, it’s a team sport.”
Next weekend, the men’s team will race at the Oscar Moore Invitational, hosted by Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ, and the women will travel to Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA to compete in the Bison Outdoor Classic. NYU will host the UAA Outdoor Championship meet at the end of April at Icahn Stadium in Manhattan.
Contact Levi Langley at [email protected].
