This is the way the season ends, not with a bang but a whimper. Only four Maroons qualified for nationals this season, three of them attaining the requisite times with their performances at the North Central Last Chance meet on Friday. Fourth-year Liz Lawton, who did not run last weekend, will also compete at nationals.
Exhaustion from last weekend’s UAA meet was evident as the Maroons struggled to string together many strong performances.
“It certainly wasn’t the most positive end to a season we’ve had. Outside of Jacob Solus hitting the provisional standard in the triple jump, there weren’t too many highlights,” said fourth-year Brian Andreycak. “Dee Brizzolara and Dan Heck had good performances in the 400 and weight throw, respectively. Thankfully, Andrew Wells-Qu and I were still able to make it into the national meet despite not bettering our times on Friday.”
Andreycak finished second in the 60-meter hurdles with a provisionally-qualifying time of 8.33. He also broke the 8.43 facility record.
“The goal for the national meet is very clear: Make it into the finals. I’m currently tied for the slowest time entered in the meet, so I don’t have any expectations to deal with except those I put on myself. I only need to be in the top 8 of the 13 entrants to make it to finals, but obviously this is the toughest meet of the year, so that’s easier said than done,” said Andreycak.
Though fourth-year Jacob Solus won the triple jump event with his leap of 14.15 meters, he will not be competing at nationals. Last weekend at UAA’s, Solus used only a half approach to prevent further injury to his hamstring. The North Central Last Chance meet was Solus’s first time jumping with a full approach.
“The provisional mark I put out this past weekend was not high enough get me into nationals. This indoor season I have been plagued by injuries, so this was only the second meet I have jumped at. I need to work out a few kinks but I expect to be back to where I should be by the start of the outdoor season,” said Solus.
Fourth-year Kristin Constantine took second place in the weight throw with her toss of 17.39m going well beyond the provisionally qualifying standard of 15.75 meters. She also placed fifth in the shot put with a provisionally qualifying throw of 12.98 meters. Constantine was recently named UAA Most Outstanding Performer in field events.
The NCAA Division III Championship will take place March 11–12 in Columbus, OH.
I find that the Maroons initial assessment of the Track Program’s achievements this year reveals a fundamental and persistent weakness in the paper’s practice of reporting news. Rather than comprehensively (or even accurately) reporting on the fact that the track program has sent some strong athletes to the national meet, and more athletes than the vast majority of schools in the DIII program across the country, the Maroon feels that it is appropriate to provide commentary on something in which it has no expertise. The simple fact of the matter is that the Maroon’s staff was either incapable or unwilling to contextualize this achievement and thus demonstrates that the staff has little more in mind than you put something down on paper, irrespective of its integrity. It would be in the best interest of the Maroon to begin to really think about the way it presents stories and how its commentary is often completely off base and unnecessary.
really?
Dear Maroon Staff
I feel the opening paragraph to this article is unnecessarily harsh and shows a lack of understanding of Track and Field: “This is the way the season ends, not with a bang but a whimper. Only four Maroons qualified for nationals this season, three of them attaining the requisite times with their performances at the North Central Last Chance meet on Frida”. Making it to the national meet is extremely difficult, and few other schools across the country can boast having four qualifiers (we would even have had five but Drew Jackson pulled out due to a hamstring injury). Of the 449 NCAA division three schools (granted not ALL of them have track), only about 450 or so individuals make it to nationals. Meaning there is on average only one individual per school who qualifies. Saying track only having four qualifies is disappointing not only marginalizes our program, but also marginalizes all the good athletes on our team who did not make nationals. We might not be competing for a national title, but we are all very proud of those who are going to represent the University of Chicago at nationals.
I completely understand why the coverage of the meet itself was negative, considering many of our athletes did not do as well as they would have hoped. But the article completely excludes the fact that the girls 4×400 set a school record.
Also, some of the information is factually inaccurate. No one attained the requisite times to make it to nationals at this meet. All of the times were attained earlier in the season.
While I cannot speak for the whole track team, I personally am still very thankful for the coverage and support The Maroon usually gives our sport.
Brian Schlick