Yale Athletics

After spending a week training over the spring recess, members of Yale’s Track and Field team tackled the University of Central Florida’s Black and Gold Invitational, setting several new personal records in an excellent start to the team’s outdoor season.

According to Head Coach of Men’s Cross Country Kyle Basista, 45 men and women across all different event groups were invited to a training camp in Orlando from March 16 to March 23. Training took place in the mornings and lasted three to four hours as the team took advantage of the warm weather to prepare for their outdoor season.

The competition subsequently took place on Friday and Saturday.

“Across the board, everyone performed really well. It was a great meet, and we’re really excited to see what we can do [for the season ahead],” said Max Bishop ’28, one of three first years on the men’s team to attend the pre-invitational camp. Bishop set a personal record of 1:50.46 in the 800m run. 

Junior Owen Karas ’26, who raced in the second 800m heat, clocked an astonishing 1:48.30, winning the event and setting the overall fastest time in the NCAA season thus far. Karas’ performance also made him the third all-time at Yale for the 800m.

“Last year, I did the 1500m on Friday and the 800m on Saturday,” Karas told the News. “This year, I did the exact same thing, so I have a perfect metric to compare. Both of those times being faster than what they were last year are really good signals to me.” 

Karas said he intends to continue running after college and hopes to secure a professional or semi-professional contract.

Senior Cristian Pereira ’25 also won his heat — the 100m dash — with an astounding personal record of 10.59, the fifth all-time at Yale. Orion Browne ’28 continued the trend with a triple jump best mark of his own at 14.45 meters, and junior Isiah Udofia ’26 jumped an Ivy League leading mark of 7.42m in the long jump event. Nolan Recker ’26 also landed second in his league with a hammer throw of 59.46m.

“We [had] a slew of notable performances from the weekend. The coaching staff [are] very pleased, given it was the first outdoor meet of the season,” Batista wrote to the News.

Similarly, amongst the women’s team, Victoria Guerrier ’27 broke a 14-year-old Yale record for the outdoor 800m run, clocking a time of 2:03.07. Fellow sophomore Lucija Grd ’27 contributed to this excellent showing with a second-place-winning time of 14.17 in her 100m hurdles heat, breaking an eight-year-old Yale school record for the event.

Running the 800m, Iris Bergman ’25, Linde Fonville ’26, Anna Chamberlin ’26 and Sylvie Sanok Dufallo ’28 set new personal records, with Bergman and Fonville becoming Yale Top 10 All-Timers. Juliette Kosmont ’27 and captain Dominique Romain ’25 also became Top 10 all-time runners in the 100m dash with their new records.

In the 4x100m relay, Romain, Grd, Kosmont and Molly Harding ’26 joined together to produce the second-best performance in Yale’s history.

“[We] want to keep cutting time down and set no limits for [our]selves,” said Matthew Schutzbank ’28, who attended the training camp and invitational, setting a personal record himself. 

“[Getting] faster is addicting, and we love to win. The team has a great environment, and we’re just going to keep improving,” Bishop said.

Batista echoed his runners’ sentiments as he set the tone for the coming season.

“Coming off a strong indoor season and an overall uplifting performance at Heps, we want to build off that momentum throughout the outdoor season,” Batista wrote to the News.

The team will appear at the Raleigh Relays in North Carolina this Thursday and Friday and at another Black and Gold invitational against Bryant University this coming weekend.

The Track and Field team will host three key meets on campus this semester, beginning with the “Transatlantic Series,” in which Harvard and Yale will compete against Cambridge and Oxford on April 12.