The men's and women's track teams had a string of strong individual performances at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell George Davis Invitational Saturday. Five Brandeis runners set personal records. Ryan Parker's '06 performance in the 800-meter race was the highlight for Brandeis. Finishing in 1:54.21, Parker recorded the fastest time in New England among Division III athletes.

"If I'm not the best in New England than I'm not competing to the best of my ability," Parker said. "It was the fastest time I've run in my life, but I'm not sitting on my laurels. We have a very important meet next week."

Although Parker's time is good enough to be the best in New England, he still trails Emory sophomore Rob Leventhal in the UAA, who clocks in at 1:53.54. Parker will get his chance to overtake Leventhal at the conference championship meet Saturday.

Geoff Fauchet '08 placed sixth in the 800-meter race, coming in at 1:57.90 while Tim Condon '05 improved his personal record in the two-mile run by an impressive margin of 33 seconds with a time of 9:40.27, good for 10th place.

Team captain Jane Farrell '06 recorded the women's team's only first-place finish with an 11-foot jump in the pole vault. Farrell narrowly missed her attempts at 11-feet eight inches.

"She did really well and now she looks really good for this weekend," team captain Remy Coyle '05 said.

Because the match was against mostly Division II teams, coach Mark Reytbalt felt that individual performances and tuning up for the next meet were more important than team placement.

"You are trying to do well, but you're not really competing against people on your level," Reytblat said.

The Judges compete in the UAA Championships at Washington University in St. Louis on Saturday at 10 a.m.