Blue Track & Field Takes Fourth at NEWMAC Championships; Asare Named Rookie of the Year
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Led by a trio of First Team All-Conference performers, Wellesley College track & field scored a school record 95 points to take fourth place at the 2015 New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Championships at MIT's Henry G. Steinbrenner Track.
MIT claimed its seventh consecutive title with a score of 249. The host Engineers were followed by runner-up WPI (125 points), third place Wheaton (105) and Wellesley, while Coast Guard (68) rounded out the top five. The Blue's fourth place finish is the highest finish in program history at the NEWMAC Championships.
Wellesley first year Abena Asare earned the 2015 NEWMAC Rookie of the Year Award, and First Team All-Conference honors, after capturing the Long Jump with a school record leap of 5.63m. Asare's long jump mark also ranks her among the top-ten nationally in Division III in the event.
Asare went on to take fourth in the Triple Jump, establishing another school record with a jump of 10.89m, and sixth in the High Jump, clearing 1.53m.
Also competing in the High Jump, first year Priscilla Lee (Anaheim, Calif.) set a new school record with her mark of 1.58m.
Senior Taylor Bickford (Limington, Maine) delivered a first place and First Team All-Conference time of 11:13.6 in the 3000m Steeplechase, earning the Blue ten points in an event that also saw sophomore Edie Sharon (Winchester, Mass.) grab third place with a time of 11:50.15.
Sophomore Isabella Narvaez (Greenwich, Conn.) continued her dominance in the 400m Dash, winning the event, and garnering First Team All Conference honors, with a time of 57.44. Senior Kendra Waters (Stratham, N.H.) also finished in the top-3 in the 400m Dash, earning Wellesley five points with a time of 59.76.
Asare, Narvaez and Waters teamed with senior Kathleen Hanlon (Paradise Valley, Ariz.) to deliver a Second Team All-Conference performance in the 4 x 100m Relay. The Blue quartet finished tenths of a second behind first place MIT with a time of 48.94.
Other top-five times for the Blue included junior Sharon Ng's (Sunnyvale, Calif.) 4:46.40 performance in the 1,500m Run, as well as a fourth place finish from Ng, Hanlon, Waters, and Narvaez in the 4 x 400m Relay with a time of 4:02.89.
Juniors Priyanka Fouda's (Wellesley, Mass.) and Carolyn Chelius (Haddonfield, N.J.) took third and fifth in the in the 5,000m Run with times of 17:49.52 and 18:49.97, respectively.
Wellesley track & field will return to MIT next Friday and Saturday, May 1st and 2nd, for the New England Division III Championships.