Seven All-Region Honors Highlight NE DIII Championships for Track & Field

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- Wellesley College track & field secured six all-region honors and took down a pair of school records on Saturday at the 2016 New England Division III Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Springfield College's Blake Track. In all, the Blue finished their two days of competition at the event with seven all-region honors and three new school records.  

Wellesley took ninth place overall in the team standings, totaling 37 points. MIT scored 123.5 points to win the team title. Williams (86.5 points) was second, while Southern Maine (59 points) took third and Middlebury (50 points) and UMass Boston (46 points) rounded out the top-five.

The Blue took down school records in the 4 x 800m Relay and the 400m hurdles on Saturday. Wellesley's 4 x 800m team of sophomore Isabella King (Cincinnati, Ohio), senior Sharon Ng (Sunnyvale, Calif.), senior Caitlin Bailey (Old Forge, N.Y.) and junior Sonja Cwik (La Canada, Calif.) earned all-region recognition with their fourth place time of 9:26.65. First year Cathy Chen (Parsippany, N.J.) set a new school record in the 400m Hurdles with a time of 1:06.26. The school record was her second of the weekend after dropping her own time in the 100m Hurdles with a mark of 16.19 on Friday evening.

Sophomore Abena Asare (Berlin, N.J.), who finished second in the long jump on Friday, returned on Saturday to earn her second all-region honor, this time in the 100m. Asare ran to a time of 12.71 to take sixth overall. Asare wasn't the only member of the Blue to garner dual all-region recognition. Junior Isabella Narvaez (Cali, Colombia) brought home all-region honors in both the 200m and the 400m. In the 200m, Narvaez clocked in with an ECAC qualifying time of 25.66 to take sixth. She then registered an ECAC and NEICAAA qualifying mark in the 400m with a third place time of 57.37. 

Senior Priyanka Fouda (Wellesley, Mass.) earned Wellesley's second runner-up performance of the weekend, with her all-region finish in the 5000m. Fouda ran to a time of 17:41.44, eclipsing her mark of 17:43.47 at last week's New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) championships. 

Junior Edie Sharon (Winchester, Mass.) added an all-region time in the 3000m Steeplechase, also registering ECAC and NEICAAA qualifying marks. Sharon ran to a time of 11:14.96 to take fourth overall. She was the first of three Wellesley runners across the line in the event, as sophomore Taylor Fortnam (Portola Valley, Calif.) and senior Alessandra Gavin (Annapolis, Md.) followed in 11:55.68 and 12:01.60, respectively. 

In the 1500m, Ng and Cwik ran with a fast paced field to take ninth and eleventh, respectively. Both runners registered ECAC qualifying times, while Ng hit an NEICAAA qualifying mark. Ng finished in 4:37.65 and Cwik had a time of 4:43.44.

Also in action on Saturday, Wellesley's 4 x 100m squad of sophomore Priscilla Lee (Anaheim, Calif.), Narvaez, Chen and Asare took eleventh with a time of 49.47. Lee also took 15th (1.54m) in the High Jump.

Qualified participants from Blue Track & Field will return to action next Friday and Saturday, May 13-14, at the NEICAAA All-New England Outdoor Championships at Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven, Conn.