After a month-long layoff, the men's and women's indoor track teams were just hoping to use last Saturday's Bowdoin College Invitational to gear up for future matches.The Judges achieved that goal, but it did not result in a win for either team. The women's team finished in second place out of three teams with 129 points, just four points shy of first-place Bowdoin, while the men's team finished third out of four teams with 66 points.

"The key is always to come back from break and just have a solid performance to kick off the second semester," Dan Suher '08 said. "In terms of that goal, we met [it] far and wide."

This result came despite the absence of distance runners Hannah Lindholm '10, Beth Pisarik '10 and Meaghan Casey '09. Lindholm and Pisarik were two of the top runners during last fall's cross country season, while Casey provisionally qualified for the NCAA Championships during last year's outdoor track season.

"We could have scored much higher if we would have had everyone, but everybody did compete well," coach Mark Reytblat said.

The women's team had nine first-place finishes, three of which involved Ali Sax '09.

Sax won the long jump and the triple jump with leaps of 4.74 and 10.41 meters, respectively, and was also a member of the Judges' 4-by-200 relay team that took first place with a time of 1 minute, 51.33 seconds.

"I did a lot of events, so I was a bit tired throughout the whole [meet]," Sax said. "I had three events going at once, so it was hectic in that sense."

The Judges also took the top two slots in four different events. In the one-mile run, rookie Grayce Selig '11 won her first-ever collegiate race, as her time of 5:26:48 was .47 seconds better than teammate Katy Agule '09.

Emily Owen '11 also won her first-ever collegiate event, taking the 600-meter run in 1:45:73, while fellow rookie Marie Lemay '11 won the 800-meter event and was part of the winning 4-by-400-meter relay team.

Other wins came from Olivia Alford '08 in the 400-meter dash and Suzanne Bernier '10 in the high jump.

With the absence of Lindholm, Pisarik and Casey, several players had to compete in new events. Bessie Bianco '08 competed in the triple jump for the first time in her career, and while she finished fourth out of four competitors, she contributed three points to the team's overall score simply by participating. Adie Sprague '08, usually a hurdler and sprinter, competed in the 600-meter event, finishing third out of eight players.

"Everyone did all their events. No one backed out of any of them," Alford said. "We had people doing events they hadn't done before, and we're just trying to expand [which] people do what events so we can get more points for the future."

While the men's team did not fare quite as well, it also put up some solid performances despite missing several key runners. Rookie Sam Donovan '11 won the 1000-meter event with a time of 2:40:13, just ahead of second-place finisher Jeremy Goldenberg '11. The Judges also took the top two spots in the 800-meter event, as Dan Suher '08 took first with a time of 2:01:25 and Ben Bray '11 was second with a time of 2:02:74.

Captain Patrick Gregoire '08 took second in the 55-meter sprint, finishing only behind USM's Derek Murchie, but was not happy with his performance.

"I just tried focusing a little harder [between the preliminaries and the finals], and I'm a little disappointed in myself that I wasn't keeping up," he said. "I just need to get back on the wheel and do a little bit more actual racing training."

In the jumping events, Frank Longo '08 competed in four events due to the absence of Matt Hohmann '11 and Shyam Vimal '09.

His best result was a third-place finish in the high jump.

The track teams next compete at home in the Reggie Poyau Memorial Jan. 19 at noon.