Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

A Pair of Threes

After working tirelessly over the past three months to accumulate qualifying times, the culmination of the Georgetown track and field program’s efforts resulted last weekend with a pair of third-place finishes at the Big East Championships.

Senior Davin Williams won two individual titles to lead the men, and junior Monica Hargrove earned a victory in the 500m on the women’s side, as the Hoyas ended the competition largely in line with expectations. In total, the men compiled 97 points to place third behind champion Notre Dame (114) and runner-up Connecticut (101), while the women collected 78 points to receive a third-place finish behind Miami (157.5) and Notre Dame (120).

Williams’ victories in the long jump (7.49m) and triple jump (15.43m) contributed 20 points to the men’s team score. Senior Ali Najjar also claimed an individual victory with his time of 1:50.99 in the 800m. For the women, Hargrove was personally responsible for 14 points, with her victory in the 500m (1:12.72) and fifth-place finish in the 200m (24.99), and she also ran a leg on Georgetown’s third-place 4 x 400m relay team.

“We figured that if we could go in, put as many points on the board as we could, and get third, then we could walk out of the Carrier Dome with pride,” Hargrove said. “For me, it was a challenge running the 500m, 200m and 4 x 400m, but I tried to concentrate and just take one race at a time.”

Hargrove’s efforts lifted a team underrepresented in certain areas – the women had only one athlete entered in all the field events – and supplemented Georgetown’s relative strength in the middle distances. Similarly for the men’s team, the high quality of Williams’s performances helped offset the small quantity of Georgetown’s field event participants.

Behind the individual championships from Williams and Najjar, the men also received standout performances from freshman Chris Lukezic in the mile and distance medley relay, and Jesse O’Connell in the 1,000m and 4 x 800m relay – in each of which event the Hoyas earned second place finishes.

Lukezic timed 4:14.66 in the mile, and was followed by sophomore Tommy Manning (4:17.75) in seventh place. Earlier, Lukezic and anning combined with senior Dylan Welsh and freshman Jared Jenkins to time 9:55.84 in the distance medley relay.

O’Connell recorded a time of 2:27.51 in the 1,000m, and joined Welsh, freshman Stanley Lagrenade and senior George O’Loughlin in the 4 x 800m, where the group logged a time of 9:55.84. O’Loughlin also ran the 1,000m, where he placed sixth with a time of 2:29.36.

Following Najjar in the 800m, sophomore Nat Glackin timed 1:55.19 and freshman Courtney Jaworski timed 1:58.24 for seventh and eighth place finishes, respectively.

Senior James Graham contributed 11 points to the team total with a third-place finish in the 60m hurdles (7.98) and a fourth-place finish in the 500m (1:03.66). In other sprint events, senior Robert Wingate-Robinson and freshman Chris Bonner claimed seventh-place finishes in the 400m and 200m, respectively.

Sophomore Chris Esselborn and senior Mike Smith highlighted the action in the distance events, where Esselborn timed 8:25.83 in the 3,000m and Smith timed 14:48.55 in the 5,000m, to add a pair of sixth-place finishes. Sophomore Rod Koborsi followed Smith in the 5,000m with a time of 14:49.44 for eighth place.

As the only field event athlete other than Williams to score points in an event, freshman Danny Pellegrino placed fourth in the pole vault with a height of 4.95m.

After Hargrove’s efforts in the 200m and 500m, the women’s team earned the bulk of its points in the middle distances, where the team had seven scorers between the lengths of 800m and a mile.

Senior Erin Sicher led the team in the 1,000m, where she placed fourth with a time of 2:50.79. She was followed by freshman Meghan O’Neil in fifth place with a time of 2:52.35. Sicher also scored points in the mile, where she placed sixth (4:56.66) behind the third-place finish of her teammate, junior Treniere Clement, in 4:52.09.

Clement also led the team in the 800m, where she claimed an additional third-place finish by crossing the line in 2:09.92. Junior Kori Hamilton (2:11.74) and senior Jill Laurendeau (2:15.48) contributed fourth-place and seventh-place finishes, respectively, in the event.

In the long distances, sophomores Nicole Lee (17:03.85) and Jodee Adams-Moore (17:17.22) placed fourth and seventh, respectively, in the 5,000m. Adams-Moore also claimed a seventh-place finish in the 3,000m (9:46.00), where she was followed by her teammate, junior Colleen Kelly, in eighth with a time of 9:47.27.

The women placed highly in each of the relays, with a third-place finish in the 4 x 400m (3:42.74), a fourth-place finish in the 4 x 800m (8:59.45) and a sixth-place finish in the distance medley (11:47.38). Senior Jamillah Bowman, who joined Hargrove, Hamilton and freshman Danielle Rodgers in the 4 x 400m, additionally logged 1:13.18 in the 500m for a third-place finish.

The team’s lone participant in the field events, sophomore Erica Derrickson, cleared 3.50m to place sixth in the pole vault.

“Overall it was a good performance,” Assistant Coach Juli Henner said. “We had tremendous leadership by a few individuals. Monica had an outstanding meet – she’s been working really hard ever since she stepped on campus at the beginning of the year – and Jamillah ran an excellent race in the 500m. We asked a lot of Treniere and Erin to run five races, but they handled it well, and Meghan O’Neil didn’t run like a freshman – she ran like she’d been there four or five times before.”

This weekend, Hargrove and O’Connell will travel to Boston for the U.S. Championships, while the rest of the team will stay home to prepare for the Notre Dame Invitational and IC4A/ECAC Championships the following week.

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