From Brandeis University Athletics
The Brandeis men's track and field team had its best showing in more than a decade at the New England Division III Outdoor championships thanks to a pair of top-three individual performances and two All-New England relays. The Judges scored 23 points to finish in a tie for 11th place. The meet was held at Williams College.
Leading the way was senior Irie Gourde (Portland, Ore./York School, Toronto), who finished in second place in the 200-meter dash. Gourde won his heat with a time of 21.78 seconds, just a tenth of a second off his season-best performance. Gourde finished second to Anthony Kardonsky of Tufts by just seven-hundredths of a second. His finish was the best by a Brandeis runner at the Outdoor New England Championships since 2012. It was the third individual All-New England title for Gourde this year, having won the 200 title and place second in the 400 indoors.
The Judges also had a bronze medalist in the decathlon, where rookie Jack Allan (Wrentham, Mass./King Phillip Regional) placed third with a lifetime-best score of 5757. Allan finished among the top three in five of the 10 events and also recorded personal bests in five. His PRs came in the 400-meter dash (53.07 seconds, 2nd place), the 1,500-meter run (5:04.11, 4th place), the long jump (6.21 meters, 20-4 1/2, 2nd place) and the 110-high hurdles (15.52 seconds, 2nd place) and the pole vault (3.35 meters, 10-11 ¾, 7th place). His additional top-three events were the high jump (1.77 m, 5-9 ¾, 2nd), the 100 meters (11.80 seconds, 3rd) and the shot put (10.76 m, 35-3 ¾, 3rd). Allan had previously earned All-Region honors indoors in the heptathlon, where he finished fifth.
The Judges' final individual All-New England performance for the men came from junior Mitchell Hutton (Villa Park, Calif./Villa Park) in the 5,000-meter run. Hutton placed fifth overall with a time of 15:02.27, good for his second-straight All-New England honor outdoors. He finished in sixth place in 2016.
Brandeis also added a pair of top-eight finishes in relays. Gourde anchored the 4x400-meter team to a time of 3:20.30, second in their heat and the fastest time in the event in recent memory, qualifying them for the ECAC Championships. Gourde teamed with two other seniors – Nick Wactor (Oakland, Calif./Head-Royce) and Jeremy Wilson (Elizabeth, N.J./Elizabeth) – along with rookie Churchill Perry (Pembroke Pines, Fla./Westminster Acad.) to place sixth overall.
In the 4x100-meter relay, three sophomores and a rookie took home All-New England honors with a seventh-place finish, posting a time of 42.83 seconds, winning their heat. Rookie Lorenzo Maddox (Atlanta, Ga./Maynard Jackson) led off the relay, followed by sophomores Henry McDonald (Weymouth, Mass./Weymouth), Mitchell Kroker (Aumsville, Ore./Cascade), and Regan Charie (Topsfield, Mass./Masconomet Regional),