Kelsey Whitaker ’16 finished 17th in the mile run at the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships on Friday, held at the JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, N.C.

Whitaker’s last-place finish in the second heat was a bit of a disappointment, as she came into the event ranked ninth out of the 17 competitors and managed to finish 13th in last year’s one-mile run championship event. 

Whitaker’s time of five minutes, 36.86 seconds was more than 20 seconds off the pace of the next-slowest time in the event and a substantial drop-off from Whitaker’s own season-best time of 5:00.90, which she ran less than a month ago at the New England Division III Championships. 

That time netted her an impressive fourth-place finish in the event. This was Whitaker’s second-straight year in which she earned a bid to the Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships, in addition to competing in the past two NCAA Division III Cross-Country Championships. 

Whitaker was the only Brandeis representative to run at the event, after Mohamed Sidique ’15 nearly missed a bid for the triple jump.

Sidique’s jump of 14.27 meters was two-and-three- quarters of an inch short of qualifying for the NCAA Championships with a top-15 spot in the field.

It would have been Sidique’s first trip to the tournament. 

The outdoor track and field season for both the men and the women begins on March 21st at the Bridgewater State Invitational before taking on regional competition at the Tufts Snowflake Classic on March 28.

—Daniel Kanovich