Approximately one year and one month after having season-ending surgery on a torn meniscus, women's indoor track jumper Anat Ben Nun '09 stood in ready position in the triple jump at the Bowdoin College Invitational last Saturday, competing for the first time since her injury. It did not take long for her to regain her form. On only her second attempt of the afternoon, Ben Nun, a two time All-American, qualified for the NCAA Division III Championships for the third time in her career in the triple jump, leaping a distance of 11.66 meters.

Ben Nun won the event for Brandeis, but the team fell 76-64 to Bowdoin College. The men's team also competed at the Bowdoin Invitational and finished third of three teams against Bowdoin and the University of Southern Maine.

Despite her long absence from the sport, Ben Nun said she had no problems with her first competition.

"It was pretty natural, just like I never stopped," she said. "It feels like home, doing what I love doing, especially when I do well. Before you jump, you don't really think, you just go."

For Ben Nun, the NCAA qualification is not something new, but she said it came as a surprise to do so well so early after a long rehabilitation process.

Ben Nun said she had not started running again until the beginning of fall 2008 and had not even begun jumping until she returned from winter break just a few weeks ago.

"Since the surgery I've been doing physical therapy trying to get better," she said. "It was a difficult time, but coming back now after winter break I just started triple jumping again and did not expect to do extremely well in this meet. I was really surprised and really happy. All the work I put in finally paid off. It's good to be back."

The rest of the women's team saw strong performances from other runners, winning five additional events on the day. Classmates Hannah Lindholm '11, Lucia Capano '11, and Michelle Gellman '11 were victorious in the one-mile event, the 55-meter dash and the 400-meter run respectively, while Suzanne Berneir '10 took home the high jump with with a leap of 1.62 meters.

Ali Sax '09 also won the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 9.22 seconds, beating out teammate Kayley Wolf '12 by six-hundredths of a second.

On the men's side, the team had four winners along with other notable top-three finishes. Sam Donovan '11 won the 800-meter run in 1:58.76, while Marc Boutin '12 took the 1,000-meter run in 2:38.17.

In the 3,000-meter run, the Judges owned the top two spots, as classmates Dan Anastos '11 and Zack Schwartz '11 finished with times of 8:55.18 and 9:00.30, respectively. Finally, Myles Tyrer-Vassell '12 was six seconds ahead of the pack, winning the 55-meter hurdles in 8.07 seconds.

Paul Norton '11, who finished second in the one-mile run in a personal best time of 4:21.86, said the team was focused more on preparing for future events than on winning last Saturday's meet and recognized that Bowdoin and Southern Maine had deeper lineups that allowed them to tally more points.

"We didn't have the depth to cover the event the way the other teams could," he said. "We just wanted to get the rust off and get ready for the bigger meets later in the season. Everyone looked good and performed the way we wanted to."

Coach John Evans said he was satisfied with the effort that both the men's and women's teams put out in their first meet of the season despite both finishing in last place.

"It went really well. We had some really good performances," Evans said. "We really just wanted to get our legs going with this meet and pretty much across the board everyone ran well."

The teams continue play Jan. 23 through Jan. 24 at the Terrier Classic at Boston University and then will also compete at the Reggie Poyau Memorial Invitational at home Jan. 24 at noon.