It was a record breaking meet for the Quinnipiac men’s and women’s track teams led by senior Carolyn Robin who won two events and broke two school records. Robin won both the 3,000 meter and the 5,000 meter to lead the Bobcats to a seccess-ful NEC Champ-ionship meter on Feb. 14 and 15 at Landover, Maryland.
Ro-bin finished with a time of 10:08.42 in the 3,000 meter and 17:43.25 in the 5,000 meter setting new Quinnipiac records. In the process, she also qualified for the ECAC Championships.
Coach Shawn Green said, “[Robin’s] win in the 3000 meter was the first race for us and it seemed to set the tone for the whole weekend.”
It certainly seemed to spark the women’s team as they captured gold medals in four events.
Sophomore Katie Gwyther successfully defended her championship in the one mile run as she crossed the line with a time of 5:04.87.
The women’s distance medley relay team, composed of freshman Heather Hoffman, and sophomores Gwyther, Jenna Nechamen and Joanna Perez, also finished first with a time of 12:31.52. They also qualified for the ECAC Championships.
Perez finished in eighth place in the 800 meter with a time of 2:20.21, breaking her own school record she set the day before.
The success of the women’s team carried over to the men’s squad as they had successful performances as well.
Sophomore Jeffrey Roginielewicz finished second in both the 3,000 meter and the 5,000 meter heats. He also set school records in both events.
With a time of 8:20.52 in the 3,000 meter, and 14:52.32 in the 5,000 meter, Roginielewicz was the highest finisher in any event for the men. Coach Green said of Roginielewicz’s 5,000 meter performance, “with the time he ran, he simply ran ridiculously fast.” Roginielewicz set the 5,000 meter school record by an astounding 16 seconds.
Sophomore Mark Driscoll also ran well in the mile finishing in fourth place with a time of 4:17.05.
The men’s distance medley relay team of Driscoll, seniors Gregory Toomey and Thomas Martin and junior Joshua Jabaut finished in fourth place as well with a time of 10:35.30 despite a trip up.
Jabaut had a strong finish of fifth place in the 800 meter with a time of 1:55.38 setting another new school record.
The men finished in sixth place overall and the women finished in eighth place. Both finishes can be considered remarkable since neither teams had any athletes in the sprint or field events.
Only entering five events, Coach Green reflected, “The performances today absolutely blew away my expectations.”
An important factor of the teams’ performances Green emphasized is the closeness that the two teams have with each other. He noted Robin’s performance also was a catalyst for the runners.
“These two teams are extremely close and Robin’s [3000 meter] race seemed to get everyone fired up and ready to go,” Green said. “Everyone seemed to step up and run great today and we had a lot of qualifiers because of it.”
The qualifiers Green spoke of were for the up coming New England Championships as well as the IC4A Champion-ships, for men’s runners, and ECAC Champion-ships, for women’s runners.
The remaining Bobcats left to run in those meets are in their “peak” mode of training according to Green and the number of miles trained has been toned down.
The New England Championships will be held on Feb. 27 and Feb. 28 at Boston University.
