NEW LONDON, Conn. – First year Rachel Berets (Belmont, Mass.) and sophomore Tatenda Rameau (Syracuse, N.Y.) each registered New England Division III Championship qualifying marks to lead Wellesley College track & field on Saturday at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Spring Invitational. 

The Blue finished in seventh place in the team standings, earning 52 points from 12 events. Westfield State took the team title with 124.50 points, edging out second place trinity by two points.

Berets took second in the 100m hurdles with a collegiate best and DIII NE qualifying time of 16.55. Berets was also eighth in the 400m hurdles. Rameau finished the day with a number of top times for Wellesley, including a fourth place finish in the 100m with a new top time of 12.70 and a runner-up finish in the long jump with a mark of 5.20m. 

Both her performance in the 100m and the long jump were DIII NE qualifying marks for Rameau, who also finished sixth in the 200m (26.77) and helped teammates Hana Sugioka (Newbury Park, Calif.), Priscilla Lee (Anaheim, Calif.), and Cathy Chen (Parsippany, N.J.) to a fifth place time of 52.89 in the 4 x 100m relay. Lee also joined Rameau in the 100m, picking-up three points for the Blue with a sixth place time of 13.12, while Chen took fourth in the 400m hurdles (1:14.45) and ninth in the 100m hurdles (17.35) 

Wellesley added four more top-ten finishes in the throws. Junior Helen Andersen (Madison, N.J.) recorded a mark of 10.05m on her second attempt to take tenth in the shot, while sophomore Crystalina Guo (Montgomery, N.J.) earned the Blue a point with an eighth place finish in the discus (28.50m). Andersen and Guo also finished eighth (36.31m) and 11th (34.41m), in the hammer, while senior Caroline Hsu (Boca Raton, Fla.) was 16th (29.38m). In the javelin, senior Isabella King (Cincinnati, Ohio) finished ninth (27.50m) and first year Kiana Stacy (Gaithersburg, Md.) was 12th (9.10m). 

King's top finish on the day came in the 800m, where she took fourth overall with a time of 2:22.94. The Blue fielded four runners in the event, as first years April Chu (Fremont, Calif.) and Ava Shipman (Makawao, Hawaii) finished in 11th (2:36.89) and 14th (2:38.14) and sophomore Elizabeth Wegman (East Sandwich, Mass.) took 18th (2:40.82). King, Wegman, Shipman, and first year Flora Naylor (San Antonio, Texas) were also sixth in the 4 x 400m Relay with a time of 4:35.40.

Three more top-ten finishes in the 1500m and the 5000m rounded out the times for the Blue on Saturday. Sophomore Taylor Mahlandt (Ephrata, Pa.) was the top Wellesley finisher in the 1500m, taking seventh in 5:06.97. First years Grace Cowles (Yarmouth, Maine) and Taylor Balfour (Rockville, Md.) also added times of 5:13.88 (17th) and 5:48.35 (31st), respectively. 

The Blue also added two top-ten times in the 5000m, where first year Samara Shaz (New York, N.Y) and senior Clare Salerno (Johnson, Vt.) took sixth (19:35.27) and tenth (19:58). Sophomore Sophie Dolan (Austin, Texas) added a 15th place (20:23.89) finish and first year Carolyn Price was 16th in 20:36.20. 

Wellesley returns to action at the two-day Silfen Invitational, hosted by Connecticut College next Friday and Saturday, April 13 and 14.