New York – Based on the descending order lists that rank all competing individuals coming into the Big East Indoor Track and Field Championships, Georgetown’s women’s team was projected to finish nearly 30 points behind the track and field powerhouse and defending champion Connecticut. While the Hoyas were no doubt a talented team, the coaching staff even predicted that the team would also fall to third behind Louisville, whose strength lies in the field events. Yet the Hoya women lived up to their mid-distance reputation and picked up key points in the women sprints as well to give the Huskies everything they could handle all weekend long before falling just short, 107 to 98, after the final event was calculated.

The women got off to a blistering start Saturday, the first day of competition, as senior Bukola Bamigboye scored well in the 60 meter hurdles, long jump and 800m run to take second overall in the pentathlon with an NCAA provisional mark of 3,967 points.

While the Hoyas advanced runners to the finals all day long with solid performances in the preliminaries, the distance medley relay team stole the show with an impressive come from behind performance that broke the meet record. Freshman Emily Infeld led off the 1200m leg with a 3:22 split, but the second-fastest time in school history was not enough to prevent West Virginia sophomore Carrie Bland from building a sizeable lead on Georgetown. Freshman London Finley ran a strong 400m leg to inch the Hoyas a little closer, handing off to senior Avril Ogrodnick, who ran what Head Coach Chris Miltenberg called a “dominating” 800m to bring the Hoyas all the way back to first. Ogrodnick built momentum over the entire leg, turning a 15m deficit into a 15m lead. Senior Maggie Infeld closed it out for the Hoyas, cruising to an 11:16.84 mark that surpassed the meet record set by the Mountaineers a year ago.

“To break the meet record with basically our anchor leg shutting it down the last half mile is pretty exciting … the Georgetown DMR is a big tradition for us, and we come ready to make a statement every time we come out here,” Miltenberg said.

Not missing a beat, junior Renee Tomlin set the tone for the final day of competition with a stellar 1000m. Sitting behind the leader for the first half of the race, Tomlin made her move at 500 meters and gradually built her lead over the second half of the race, holding off Villanova sophomore Sheila Reid in the last lap to take first with a time of 2:46.32. Ogrodnick ran strong to take fourth in the event as well.

“I had no idea where she was. I was kinda waiting for somebody to come up just to get that last kick in, but nobody really ever came up on my shoulder or anything … It’s exciting [to be a Big East champion],” Tomlin said.

Following the 1000m, freshman Maggie Infeld toed the line in the 800m with Seton Hall’s 400m to 500m specialist Clarisse Moh. With the pace going out slow, Infeld waited until the 400m mark to take the lead, pushing the pace the rest of the way. Yet Moh hung tough, going with Infeld and accelerating off the last turn to edge Infeld at the line. Senior Christine Whalen more than made up for the loss of points, surging over the last two laps to come all the way back on nearly the whole field to take third.

In the women’s mile, Emily Infeld yet again lined up next to the Mountaineers’ Bland, arguably the top miler in the country. Bland and Louisville junior Tarah McCay took out the race at a blistering pace, and Infeld was left in between the leaders and the chase pack, running by herself. Showing uncommon poise for a freshman as she has all year long, she held strong and finished a respectable third in 4:44.56. Also in the race was junior Lauren Gregory, who finished a strong fifth for the Hoyas.

“I think it’s a great experience for Emily because Bland is the kind of athlete that she wants to be … She’s doing great, but there’s another whole level that she’s going to work to get to,” Miltenberg said.

Freshman Katie McCafferty, who took seventh in the 5000m the night before, raced strong in the 3000m as well, picking off girls who fell off the lead pack over the second half of the race to take fifth with an NCAA provisional 9:29.59.

Yet all of the distance events were points that the Hoyas had expected to score, as one of the stronger middle distance programs in the country. Still, as the scores were read after every event, UConn was not pulling away from the Hoyas as much as the coaches had projected. While the Huskies were not scoring as high as expected, the Hoyas’ sprints were picking up key points as well, from the 60m hurdles on up to the 500m,, to keep the gap close.

Finley PR’ed in the 60m hurdles to run 8.61s and take sixth. Junior Sarah Wernik ran well in both the preliminaries and the finals to PR in the 200m and take sixth as well, as did senior Erika Moses in the 500m, in which she won her heat and placed fourth overall with a time of 1:12.70. Junior Abigail Johnson had one of the best weekends for the Hoyas’ sprinters, notching an NCAA provisional time in the preliminaries of the 400m on Saturday and running tough in the finals on Sunday as well. Johnson was running in third after the first 200 m, then made a strong push to move into second on the back straightaway before faltering down the stretch falling to fourth.

“The thing that’s really impressive about that group is that all of the women scored … It says a lot about the heart of that sprint group that is growing that is becoming a part of the Georgetown family,” Assistant Coach Shelia Burrell said. “That group is really coming together and getting that something special is happening at Georgetown.”

After the 3000m, with only the relays left for running events, the Hoyas barely trailed the Huskies 83-82.

As the intensity grew in the building, the Hoyas sent Whalen, Infeld, Ogrodnik and Tomlin to the line for the 4x800m. At the start Whalen got stuck behind the pack on her leg, and after working to move up the field, faded badly down the stretch to split a disappointing 2:16 and hand off far behind the leaders. However, Infeld more than did her part, running strong and moving her way up the pack to hand off in third, splitting a 2:08.

“I knew we’d be O.K. . Maggie just went out, obviously fired up after getting second in the 800. She just ran like somebody possessed,” Miltenberg said.

Ogrodnick, much like the night before in the distance medley relay, erased the deficit even more so, handing off to Tomlin right behind race-leading Villanova and splitting 2:09.5. For Ogrodnik the frenzied atmosphere was more than helpful.

“Your adrenaline gets going ’cause everyone is screaming at you … It’s almost easier to run it like that, the track is clear and you’re just trying to reel her in,” she added.

As the noise level built even higher, Tomlin sat on Villanova’s Reid just as she had in the 1000m, waiting until 500m in to make her move and never looked back from there, kicking to notch a 2:08.5 split and crossing the line in 8:43.93, a mark that now stands as a record for the 100-year history of the Armory, where the meet was held.

Yet after the race, the results for the final field events came in, including the shot put – a UConn strength – which put the Huskies up for good. No matter what the Hoyas would score in the final event, the 4x400m, the best they could finish was second.

Perhaps as a sign of things to come, the team of Wernik, Finley, Johnson and Moses competed extremely tough, running in second for the majority of the race until being passed by Notre Dame in the final leg. The team ran a strong 3:41.84 to beat UConn and give the Hoyas hope for the future.

With the Huskies celebrating in the background as the meet came to a close, Burrell was anxious for the year to come.

“I’m excited for next year with this group. We have a really young team, next year with the incoming freshmen that we have . we’ll see a lot more of what you saw this weekend … All you can do is just keep working,” she said.

Despite falling to the Huskies for the second year in a row, the Hoyas took pride in taking as many points as possible in the events they were in, competing well in every event.

“I think that when you watch your teammates compete, everyone went and tried so hard – it’s unfortunate, but I think we did all we could,” said Ogrodnick.

Head Coach Pat Henner added, “Across the board – men and women’s side, since I’ve been at Georgetown – it was one of the best competitive efforts I’ve seen from the men’s and women’s teams across the board. I think everybody we sent out there competed very hard. So I was just really pleased with how hard we completed.”

en take Fifth.

On the men’s side, a depleted squad fought hard throughout the weekend but could not manage to finish higher than fifth. Missing many key sprinters and distance runners, the Hoyas could not come close to loaded UConn and Notre Dame teams.

One of the biggest highlights for the men came on the first day of competition when senior Dan Nunn shocked the whole building by coming back on Notre Dame senior Patrick Smyth to win the 5000m in a meet record and NCAA provisional time of 13:42. Smyth opened up a gap midway through the race, but Nunn stayed tough, matching his pace and keeping within striking distance. Finally, with about 600m to go, Nunn kicked hard, dropping a 2:05 over his last 800 meters to win in convincing fashion and break former Hoya John Trautmann’s (B’90) meet record.

“I was just trying to stay relaxed and remember to compete late. I knew that I might have a chance to beat him with my kick, so I was just trying to keep an eye on what he was doing … I knew we were running the same pace for quite a while. Even though he was gapping me, I still had contact with him – that was important,” Nunn said.

Henner added, “I got really excited at the end. It’s honestly like coaching a long distance race is kind of like running one, you’re at first kind of calmly observing it and then when you see something special can happen you kind of get excited – it was a lot of fun”

In the 60-meter hurdles, sophomore Chris Kinney and freshmen Kamryn Austin and Biyerem Okengwu placed second, fourth, and fifth respectively putting three Hoyas in the top five.

“Coming from having no hurdlers to have four good hurdlers, everybody’s been working hard, and it really showed and paid off and scored us our points,” Kinney said.

Other highlights included the DMR team of senior Alex Mason and juniors Danny Harris, John Maloy and Sandy Roberts taking second in 9:46.59, in which anchor Roberts was knocked down by a Nova anchor who was disqualified as a result. Mason, Harris, Maloy and Roberts combined on the 4x800m as well to take third. In the 3000m, senior Andrew Bumbalough made his first appearance of the indoor season, having battled with an injury throughout much of the winter to take third in 8:10.89. Senior Justin Scheid, who took fourth in the 5000m the night before, took fifth in the 3000m behind Bumbalough.

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