The first meet for the women’s indoor track and field season was a thrilling mixture of excitement, grit, determination, effort, tough losses and triumphant victories. The meet was held at Bates on Saturday, January 13, and was a three-way competition between MIT, Colby, and our own Bobcats. Although the day saw tremendous performances from all three teams, MIT emerged the winner with 106 points. Bates earned second place with 53.5 points, leaving Colby in third with 28.5. The final scores are not indicative of the effort put forth by each team, and Bates competitors from all different events saw some seriously impressive feats by the time this meet was over.
Notable among these is junior Ayden Eickhoff ‘19 setting a new school record for the 1000 meters with a time of 2:57.24, taking first place in the event as well. This fantastic performance broke a record that has been standing for fifteen years now, by Kelley Puglisi in 2003.
Other track standouts ranged across a variety of distances and hurdles. In the 600 meters, sophomore Casey Snow ‘20 placed second with a time of 1:45.75, closely followed by senior captain Caroline Gettens ‘18 in third at 1:47.52. In the mile, senior Katherine Cook ‘18 ran 5:10.22 for second place. The 800 meters was also successful, with juniors Sarah Rothmann ‘19 and Wendy Memishian ‘19 placing second and third respectively, with 2:27.69 and 2:38.35.
Perhaps the most impressive event for Bates was the 60 meter hurdles, in which four athletes made it onto the Top 10 Performances list for Bates in that event, with first-years Amanda Kaufman ‘21 (9.31 seconds, prelim.), Jenny Martin ‘21 (9.49, prelim.), and Molly McCoole ‘21 (9.90, prelim.) and junior Sarah Shoulta ‘19 (9.56, finals) taking the second, fourth, fifth, and eighth on the list, respectively.
About this great achievement, Kaufman says, “Going into the event I was very nervous. I told myself that I’ve been training harder than I ever did in high school. I guess everything just came together in that race. It was an incredible feeling crossing the finish line of my first collegiate race. I am very excited for the rest of the season and more opportunities to improve.”
The field events had tremendous accomplishments as well. For jumpers, outstanding performances include Molly McCoole winning the high jump with a height of 1.64 meters (5-0.45) and taking the fifth spot on the all-time best list. Also in the high jump, junior Shelby Burns ‘19 achieved 1.49m (4-10.5), placing third, and senior Srishti Sunil ‘18’s long jump of 4.95 meter (16-3) placed fourth. Additionally, the throwers had standout efforts, such as junior captain Katie Hughes ‘19 placing third in both shot put and weight throw, throwing 35-7.25 and 43-9.75, respectively.
There was also impressive depth displayed by the team as a whole, at all levels of performance. Unfortunately, the meet was scored only four places deep, so many of the accomplishments from Bobcats who did not quite make the top spots were not acknowledged in the final score. The tremendous efforts of newcomers and personal bests from veterans look promising for upcoming meets in the season to come. The next meet will be an invitational Saturday, January 20, also at Bates.
