The men and women’s track and field team split runners between the Tufts Last Chance Meet and the Eastern Conference Athletic Association Championships this past weekend and saw Ryan Stender ’18 earn a well-deserved bid for next week’s National Collegiate Athletic Association Championships.

Tufts Last Chance Meet (non-scoring meet)

Stender ran the 3,000-meter run in 8:21.36, a full 12 seconds faster than his time at the University Athletic Association Championships in February. His time was less than a second behind the third-place finisher from Widener University and just three seconds off the lead. Although Stender crossed the line at the back of the lead group, he finished a mere four seconds ahead of the race’s fifth-place finisher.

Quinton Hoey ’17 set a personal-best time in the one-mile run, taking sixth place in 4:21.74. His time was .35 seconds out of fifth place and just over a second out of a fourth-place finish in the race. 

Mitchell Hutton ’18 rounded out the Judges’ competitors at the meet, taking 15th place in the 3,000-meter run. Hutton clocked in at 8:51.55, five seconds ahead of the next competitor in the race.

ECAC Championships (3 points, T-41st place)

The Judges got only one scoring result at the ECAC Championships but saw a number of runners turn in strong meets and two earn season-best performances. 

Evan Scott ’16, in just the fifth meet of his collegiate career, earned All-ECAC honors with a sixth-place finish in the men’s high jump, earning the Judges only three points of the meet. Scott’s jump of 1.98 meters was a personal best and tied for fourth-best based on height, though he fell to sixth overall due to a tiebreaker. 

Scott was the only member of the men’s squad to compete at the meet, while the women’s squad sent six members to the weekend.

Haliana Burhans ’18 and Tove Freeman ’16 placed consecutive finishes in the women’s 400-meter dash, running to times of 59.34 and 59.49 seconds, respectively. Burhans took 14th place while Freeman finished in 15th, a step ahead of the 16th-place competitor.

Kate Farrell ’17 earned a 12th-place finish in the 3,000-meter run, covering the course in 10:34.59. Her time was three seconds behind a top-10 finish.

Kelsey Whitaker ’16 ran to a season-best 5:11.19 in the one-mile run, just one second out of a scoring All-ECAC spot. Whitaker’s ninth-place finish paced the way for three Judges’ competitors in the race, as Maggie Hensel ’16 stopped the timer at the 5:13.1 mark and Kyra Shreeve ’18 took 17th in 5:17.92. Hensel’s time was good for 11th place, less than a second behind a top-10 finish and a slim two-tenths of a second faster than the 12th-place competitor. 

Stender will travel to Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa this weekend for the NCAA Indoor Championships where he will race in the 3,000-meter run. 

Stender's time is 14th-fastest among DIII runners but earned the 12th seed for the meet on Saturday.

Emily Bryson ’19 also earned an NCAA bid for the mile-run after her 5:02.34 time during the New England DIII Championships. She will run as the 16th seed in the race, which runs a preliminary race on Friday and finals on Saturday.

The Judges will resume their season at the Bridgewater State University Bears Invitational on Mar. 26 in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.