Throughout the indoor track and field season, the jumping squad had been the strength of the women's team, with both Anat Ben Nun '09 and Ali Sax '09 qualifying for the NCAA Championships earlier this season. The New England Division III Track and Field Championships at Bowdoin College last Saturday were no different. Ben Nun and Sax finished second and third, respectively, in the triple jump event, helping the women's team to a seventh-place finish out of 24 teams with 37.5 points. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology won the meet with 134 points.

The men's team competed at the New England Division III Championships at MIT and finished 23rd out of 24 with two points. Williams College won the event with 145 points.

"[Sax], [Ben Nun] and Lucia Capano '11 did a fantastic job," coach Mark Reytblat said. "They scored most of the points in the long and triple jump."

Ben Nun posted her best jump of the season, leaping 11.71 meters, 1.5 inches beyond her previous best, earning eight points for her team. Sax continued her improvement in the triple jump, leaping 11.59 meters, a personal record by over a foot which leapfrogged her from 20th to seventh nationally.

"We have been training hard technically, and I not only wanted to improve, but I knew I had to in order to guarantee nationals," Sax said. "That pushed me to focus."

Sax's success in the triple jump translated to her other events. In the long jump event, she finished second with a leap of 5.32 meters, 1 centimeter behind first place junior Nikki Hay of Springfield College, last season's United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association East Region Women's Field Athlete of the Year. Capano finished just behind Sax in a tie for fourth with Bowdoin rookie Laura Peterson with a leap of 5.21 meters. Sax's performances alone netted 14 points for Brandeis, a mark that surpassed the total points accumulated by nine entire teams at the Championships.

"[Our long jumpers] were phenomenal," he said. "They have improved so much [by breaking their personal records]."

Suzanne Bernier '10 finished fifth with a jump of 1.58 meters, good for four more points for the Judges. Bernier earned All-New England regional honors for her jumping.

In distance running, Marie Lemay '11 finished fifth in the one-mile run with a time of 5 minutes, 13.24 seconds, garnering All-New England honors as well.

Reytblat said the team is pacing themselves until the University Athletic Association Championships that begin March 7 at New York University.

"We could have done better," he said. "But we are just trying to save [all our athletes] until the UAAs."

On the men's side, Devon Holgate '11 paced the Judges, finishing seventh in the 1000 meter run in 2:33.23

Brandeis had just one other top-10 finish on the day. Myles Tyrer-Vasseil '12 took 10th place in the 55-meter dash preliminary race in 8.24 seconds, but fell short of qualifying for the finals.

The men's and women's indoor track team will compete in the Open New England Championships in Boston Saturday.