As the members of the Brandeis track teams filed onto the plane Thursday morning to travel to the University Athletic Association Track and Field Championships at the University of Chicago, they bore the brunt of their entire season. "Every meet until now has been preparing for UAAs," long-distance runner Meaghan Casey '09 said. "This is the only meet we've been talking about all season."

Seeming true to the test, the Judges pulled together a standout performance for the weekend with six first-place finishes and five second-place finishes. The men's team finished the weekend in third place overall, with the women's team coming in fourth place. The men's team's finish was the highest since coming in second place during the 1998-99 season.

"It's probably the most important meet for the team overall," Dan Suher '08 said. "The focus was on winning [individual events] and qualifying for nationals."

David Weinstein '08 highlighted the men's team's performance, becoming Brandeis' first UAA champion in the 200-meter dash with a time of 22.89 seconds. He also earned All-UAA honors with a third place finish in the 55-meter dash. With a time of 6.70 seconds for the 55-meter dash, Weinstein was only three-hundredths of a second short of being the only multiple-event winner for the meet.

"[Weinstein] was phenomenal," coach Mark Reytblat said. "We nominated him for meet MVP."

Ryan Parker '06 and Machel Charles '07 also claimed UAA titles in the 800-meter and 400-meter races. Parker won his second career UAA title with 1:54.13, was good enough to qualify provisionally for NCAA championships. As a part of a personal triumph, Parker came in over longtime rival, Emory Junior Rob Leventhal in both the preliminaries and the finals.

Parker also teamed up with Joel Sunshine '07, John Guilinger '08 and Suher to earn second place points in the men's distance medley.

Heading into this last leg of the race, Suher was in a pack with runners from Washington University and NYU. The three leaders kicked up the pace in the last 800-meters, pulling over the finish line with NYU in front at 10:24.22, followed by Brandeis 0.33 seconds later.

"I was hanging onto WashU and the kid from NYU," said Suher. "Eventually with two laps to go they started to accelerate and I just tried to hang on and ended up falling just behind NYU."

Frank Longo '08 earned second-place points for the Judges in the high jump at 1.91 meters, beating his personal best by 8 cm. The men's team finished the meet with 81 points, just 17 points behind Carnegie Melon University and 55 points behind the eventual winner, WashU.

On the women's side, captain Jane Farrell '06 led the Judges with a first-place finish in the 400-meter dash with a time of 59:12. She also posted a UAA record-setting performance of 3.51-meters in the Pole Vault. However, she only placed second in the event, after Washington University Morgan Leonard-Fleckman broke the record again and defeated her.

"[Farrell] was fantastic," Reytblat said.

Casey claimed an All-UAA honor with a third-place finish with a time of 2:21.54 in the 800 meter run. Anat Benun '09 also had a strong individual performance for t

he weekend in the field events, securing first place in the triple jump with a distance of 11.74 meters and second place in the high jump with a height of 1.57 meters.

The women's finished the meet with 73.5 points, 20 behind third-place Emory University. WashU won the meet for the seventh year in a row with 149.5 points.

Reytblat said he was pleased with the team's performance.

"The team performed so well," he said. "They were fantastic. We could have done even better, but the quality we have is wonderful."

Parker, Farrell and Benun will be traveling to Minnesota Wednesday for the NCAA championships. The rest of team will begin training for spring season this week.

"I think I'll take a day off, maybe two," Suher said. "Then get back to running.