2022-23 Indoor Track Season Preview
12/2/2022
The Brown track and field programs are set to host the 36th Alden Invitational this Saturday, December 3 at the Olney-Margolies Athletic Center (OMAC), which will kick off the team’s 2022-23 season.
Outlook from the Head Coach: Ken Hunt
“I believe the team is in good spirits and energized for our annual Alden Invitational,” said Ken Hunt, the Alden-Rothenberg Cross Country/Track & Field Coaching Chair. “Fall training for the team has gone well overall and we are just ready to start competing. Now with it being the first meet of the season we will get an idea of how fall training has worked out. This will definitely let us know where we are and what needs to happen overall as a team over winter break.”
“For the first meet, we are just looking for the team to show us coaches what type of competitors they are and what type of teammates they are going to be. It's just that simple! Great performances will come at some point. We will like that to be early and often. That is what we want to build going into the rest of the season.”
THROWS
The women’s team returns several key contributors from last year, including sophomores Sophia Gallucci, who medaled outdoors in the hammer throw at Ivy League Heps in May.
“The women are poised to be the strongest group that I’ve had in the seven years I’ve been here,” said throws coach Craig Kinsley. “We’ve got Sophia Gallucci and Mackenzie Palinski returning along with Kenda Ezeama and we’ve added Zoe Carter-Konate, who as a freshman has the ability to impact our performance right off the bat. We also have Nicolette Ducharme who should be ready this year to impact the performance. It’s a deep group of athletes on the women’s side.”
With the graduation of reigning Ivy indoor weight throw champion Kegan Schroeter, the men’s team features a young crop of underclassmen talent, that has exclusively freshman and sophomores for the indoor season.
“The men’s side is young,” Kinsley said. “We don’t have any juniors or seniors who will compete in indoors this year. We have two sophomores and a freshman who will compete. It’s a very young group that is in the building phase, but we are hoping that someone can step up this season.”
JUMPS
Brown returns a strong and deep group of jumpers on both the men’s and women’s squads who helped the Bears rank nationally in the top 25 of the USTFCCCA Event Squad rankings last year during both the indoor and outdoor season, including a No. 9 ranking from the women’s team in the indoor triple jump, and a No. 12 ranking outdoors.
For the men, junior John McNeil is the reigning indoor Ivy champion in the indoor high jump, and seniors Sidarth Raman (indoor high jump) and Altan Mitchell (indoor and outdoor triple jump) each finished runner-up at Heps last season.
The women’s return junior Lauren Yeboah-Kodie, who placed second in the triple jump at indoor Heps.
“The jumpers and multis have trained with a competitive emphasis which should lay the framework for a successful season,” Hunt said. “They are very talented and there are a lot of them. Of course, they will need to stay on their grind and remain resilient if they are going to "bring the smoke" from competition to competition. I never specifically shout out any certain athletes because from what I have seen they all are capable of some great performances. I will let their competitiveness speak for itself this season. The goal for each event area is to see how well they can be ranked nationally. If they do what they are capable of doing it should be very high.”
“The energy in both the sprints and jumps groups has been great,” said Damar Forbes, first year assistant for both sprints and jumps. “The jumps group has great depth with many of them capable of having a breakout season. Although I have only been here for a short period of time, the athletes have shown grit and eagerness to learn which I believe will take them far this season. They are a versatile group and I anticipate multiple personal-best performances.”
Sprints/Hurdles:
In the sprints and hurdles, Brown returns several contributors from last season who will look to make an impact this indoor season.
Junior Daryn Davis is back after qualifying for the finals in last year’s Heps indoor 60H finals, where she set a new personal-best, and later competed in the 100H finals at outdoor Heps.
Sophomore Daniel Sarisky finished last year strong by qualifying for the finals of the 200 meters at outdoor Heps and setting new PRs in both the 100 and 200 meters in two of his final three meets.
Marcus Gillespie returns after setting a new PR in his final outdoor meet in the 110H, and finishing second in the hurdles at the Mark Young Invitational back in April.
“I’m very excited for this freshman class we have, as well as the returners,” sprints/hurdles coach Aries Merritt said. “We’ve undergone some heavy training these last couple of weeks, but I expect them to go out and perform and put on a good show. I’m just really excited to start the year off on a good note.”
Mid-Distance/Distance
The Bears middle-distance and distance athletes will look to build on the strides made throughout the fall.
“For our middle-distance athletes, it’s huge,” assistant coach - distance Kurt Benninger said of the cross country season. “It provides the foundation for what they are looking to do throughout the indoor and outdoor season. I think this weekend and next weekend, will be good opportunities to get them on the track early and see where they are at, which is really important so they can go home over break and know what they need to do to get where they want to be when they come back in January.”
On the women’s side, coach Hannah Chappell-Dick is excited about a young middle-distance group that made significant strides throughout the cross country season, and feels the group has a high ceiling headed into the track season.
“The first-years that we have are very middle distance heavy and I’m excited for them to debut on the track,” Chappell-Dick said “I’m excited because I think the first-year group is going to do something special this year, especially targeting some of the middle-distance relay events top 10 lists and potentially finishing in the top half of the Ivy League at Heps. Right now, we’re focused on training the upper classmen and underclassmen in a variety of events so we can figure out where they will specialize come Heps. A lot of people had big breakthroughs in cross country that aren’t necessarily reflected in the results, so a lot of those breakthroughs are going to become apparent when they step on the track because of the way we structured the year and the unique skillset of the athletes we brought in.”
