Track & Field and Cross Country News spring/2015 FINAL WRAPͳUP Hello Yale Track and Field Fans! It has been a heck of a year...and there’s more to come! Our outdoor season began in glorious fashion, as 52 team members spent the week training in beautiful San Diego, California at Point Loma Nazarene University. For those of you who haven’t seen the facility at Point Loma, I can report it is truly track and field nirvana. The track is perched on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, and each day we were greeted with sunny skies and a gentle breeze that made training for every event group absolutely perfect. I can’ recall a better spring training situation in all of my time at Yale (which, amazingly is approaching 21 years!). In addition the great work we were able to do, the trip served as a tremendous bonding experience for our men and women, who were able to spend time together and strengthen team bonds and friendships. We returned to what seemed like an endless winter, but thankfully the renovations that were done to Coxe Cage last summer allowed us to continue to train in warm and sunny conditions, even though it was chilly and windy just outside the doors. All of that training led to some great performances by our teams. It’s impossible to highlight all of the great performances in one email but I’ve tried my best to give you the “cliff notes” version below. On the women’s side we had some great meets leading up to the Outdoor Heps at Penn. We gave the eventual Heps Champ, Harvard a real scare in our annual dual meet after some courageous and inspired performances. We had three women qualify for the NCAA first round – Junior Shannon McDonnell (2:06.36, 800m), Sophomore Emily Waligurski (4:22.46, 1500m) and Senior Captain Kira Garry (10:08.10, Steeple – School Record). Both Junior Karleh Wilson (SP) and Senior Emily Cable (400m) just missed out on qualifying for the NCAA first round. Our men scored more points at the Heps than we have in the past four years and ALL of those scorers return next year. We had four NCAA first round qualifiers in Junior Brendan Sullivan (16’8 PV), Sophomore James Randon (3:43.90 1500), Junior Duncan Tomlin (8:55.28, Steeple) and Junior Kevin Dooney (14:06.46 5000m). Marc-Andre Alexandre was once again the Heps Champion at 400m, and was the first man not to qualify for the NCAA first round! Both teams have established a solid base on which to build for the future. The class of 2015 will be extremely difficult to replace but our staff has brought in an outstanding group of athletes for the class of 2019 (more to come on that group in a later update…but suffice it to say it’s very exciting). I have attached a brief summary of their accomplishments to this email. Before we put the wraps on this year, we have one more order of business to attend to; our quadrennial trip overseas. This year we will be heading
to all of our familiar haunts, as our itinerary first takes us to Limerick, Ireland before we go to Birmingham, and then Cambridge and Oxford. I have attached the full itinerary to this email so that you can see exactly what the team has in store! This year we bring 23 of our best athletes, all of whom qualified by virtue of their finish at the annual Yale vs. Harvard outdoor dual meet. Our combined team is as formidable as we have ever sent across the pond. As always none of it is possible without your generous contributions to both our annual fund and to the Giegengack Fund Endowment. Thank you all for your continued involvement in and support of Yale Track and Field and Cross Country. We strive to make our student athlete’s experience, the most valuable and important of their lives, and we do so every single day. We can’t do it without your continued generosity and support of our endeavor. Our team will be blogging daily as we travel overseas. Please be sure to follow along at www.yalebulldogs.com, on Twitter and Instagram @ YaleTF_XC, and on Facebook. Yours In Yale Track and Field and Cross Country. Shoe David Shoehalter The Mark T. Young ‘68 Director of Track and Field and Cross Country