Queen’s track and field blew away the competition at the St. Lawrence Open this past weekend, dominating the field in both the men’s and women’s competitions. The women were crowned Open champions with a meet-record 196 points, a full 56 points ahead of the second-place team. The men also dominated, winning the Open championship with 158 points, the most ever by a Queen’s men’s team at the meet.
“We had a team goal of trying to win both the men’s and women’s side of the competition,” head coach Melody Torcolacci said. “We thought it was realistic, and it obviously turned out that way. We wanted a lot of personal bests and people to perform really well to kick off the season.”
The women’s record-setting victory included gold-medal performances by many athletes. Calla Humphries was arguably the athlete of the meet, setting a new Queen’s record with her win in the 500-metre race.
“Calla Humphries’ Queen’s record is a phenomenal accomplishment, and she did it running totally by herself,” Torcolacci said. “She was so far in front of everyone else, she was just running as fast as she could. She may have gone a bit faster, but she crushed the record pretty nicely.”
Sprinter Dupe Oyewumi posted the sixth best ever Queen’s time with her win in the 55-metre race. Despite being ranked third in qualifying, Oyewumi exceeded expectations by winning with a personal-best time of 7.54 seconds. Runners Jan Stirling and Celia Peters won the 200-metre and 400-metre races respectively, and each moved up to sixth all-time at Queen’s in their categories. The women’s relay teams were very strong, with victories in both the 4×200-metre and the 4×400-metre relays.
Danae Benjamin secured a second win for Queen’s in the horizontal jumps with her performance in the triple jump, while Jen Tam set a personal best in the long jump. In addition, defending meet champion in the pole vault Iris Roman successfully defended her title, winning with a vault of 3.30 metres.
On the men’s side, Travis Cummings set the tone for the weekend by winning the first event of the day—the 5000-metre race. Despite being ranked fourth going into the race and facing tough competition, Cummings successfully fended off the competition and ran a personal-best time to capture the win.
In the 800-metres, the men’s team gave a phenomenal performance, with six Queen’s runners finishing in the first six places. Led by Kevin Dunbar, all six men ran the race in under two minutes. Meanwhile, in the men’s DMR relay (1200-metre, 400-metre, 800-metre and mile legs) Braden Novakowski, Javin Sissons, Chris Hartman and Robert Kitz ran to a nine-second victory over another Queen’s team of runners.
The men also cleaned up in the horizontal jump events, with Jonathan Martin winning the long jump, and Bill Woods dominating the triple jump with a meet-record jump of 13.85 metres.
Torcolacci said she attributes the incredible team performance to the overall balance and depth of the athletes this year. “We’re balanced across the board. We’ve got incredibly talented jumpers, sprint strength, and a top-end men’s distance crew,” she said. “I think in of both men and women combined, this is definitely one of the best teams I’ve been involved with.”
Given the results of the Open, the team is in fine form going in the University of Toronto competition this weekend, and expectations are high for the remainder of the season, Torcolacci said.
“Ultimately, we want to challenge for third in the OUA. That’s what we put as our team goal. We’ll just keep working on progressing, fighting for everything, and not backing down,” Torcolacci said. “We want a minimum of 15 athletes going to the CIS championships.”
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