SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. – Wellesley College track & field had several top-five finishes and earned seventh place overall at the 2025 NEWMAC Women's Track & Field Championships, hosted by Mount Holyoke College.
MIT won the 10-team competition with 278 points. Coast Guard Academy was the runner-up with 127.5 points while Springfield College scored bronze with 94.5. Wheaton College (65), WPI (60), Smith College (51), the Blue (47), Babson College (46), Mount Holyoke College (41) and Salve Regina University (9) made up the rest of the teams the weekend.
Junior Ella Whinney (Madison, Wis.) made the podium with a third-place performance in the 3000m Steeplechase, hitting the finish line at 11:12.88. Classmate Simone Beauchamp (Aurora, Colo.) was one spot behind in fourth, marking a season-best time of 11:15.68 that currently ranks No. 41 in Division III this season.
Senior Merete Ogah (Austin, Texas) and first-year Ellie Wold (Irvine, Calif.) went 4-5 in the 200m, each setting personal high marks along the way. Ogah earned fourth with a 26.08 time while Wolf was just .02 seconds behind in fifth. Both Ogah and Wolf have qualified for the New England DIII Championships with their respective performances.
After setting a personal-best in the 100m prelims yesterday, Ogah broke it again in Saturday's finals. Ogah blazed down the track in 12.39 seconds to capture fifth place and four points.
First-year Maya Sharar (Andover, Mass.) performed well in the Discus Throw, surging to fifth out of 22 competitors with a distance of 33.39m. Junior Kenya Francis (Atlanta, Ga.) threw for a distance of 29.79m and took ninth.
Sharar later snatched 11th in the Shot Put, marking at 9.62m. First-year Maggie Berlinger (Ashby, Mass.) was 15th with a distance of 8.72m. Francis finished 16th at 8.64.
In 400m Hurdles, senior Aoife Fitzgerald (Paxton, Mass.) came in at 1:08.47 to capture fifth out of 14 runners.
Senior Erin Dickinson (Papillion, Neb.), Ogah, junior Sara Maeve Klingensmith (Chapel Hill, N.C.) and Wolf joined forces to take sixth in the 4x100m with a time of 50.01.
Junior Claire Peng (Chapel Hill, N.C.) grabbed eighth out of 25 in the 800m, setting a PR with a time of 2:21.13. First-year Leeya Rice (Closter, N.J.) nabbed 19th at 2:31.75 while classmate Leah Willis (Mercersburg, Pa.) ended the race in 21st with a time of 2:36.44.
Senior Alicia Naranjo-Champion (El Monte, Calif.) finished in the top half of the 1500m leaderboard, taking 12th out of 26 runners with a personal-best time of 5:13.54.
In the 400m, senior Charlie Barron (Chattanooga, Tenn.) crossed at 1:02.46 to finish 15th. Klingensmith placed 18th with a 1:03.49 time.
Sophomore Maggie Yan (Montvale, N.J.) raced in the 5000m, completing the event in 22:07.34.
Barron, Fitzgerald, Whinney, Peng ended the day by finishing ninth with a 4:12.55 time in the 4x400 Medley Relay.
Up next, the Blue will race at the New England DIII Championships on May 2-3 at Coast Guard in New London, Conn.
