With the University Athletic Association championships on the horizon, the men's and women's track teams entered just six runners for last Saturday's Open New England Championships at Boston University, opting to rest some injured players to get them completely ready for next weekend.The runners that did compete, however, had their moments, as four of them posted season-best times in their respective events. Dan Suher '08, Michael Stone '09 and Mekonen Gendebo '11 accomplished that on the men's side, and Beth Pisarik '10 turned the trick for the women's team.

Suher and Stone finished right next to each other in the one-mile event, with Suher finishing in 21st place out of 29 runners in four minutes and 17.19 seconds and Stone finishing in 22nd place with a time of 4:17.41.

"In terms of how I actually ran, I probably could have gotten a little faster than I did, but ... in general I was pretty good," Suher said. "There were some very fast times in my heat, and because of that I kind of fell off the pack a little bit."

Stone was more enthusiastic with his finish, which was over 3 1/2 seconds faster than his last race, which occurred at the Valentine Invitational Feb. 9.

"I think I ran really well," he said. "I was really excited with the result. I think the race itself just set up perfectly for me to run a good time. The pace was pushed from the outset, and it really fit into the race strategy that I had envisioned."

One week after finishing second place in the 3,000-meter event at the New England Division III Championships Feb. 23, Paul Norton '11 again led the way in that event, finishing 13th of 28 runners in 8:45.50.

Gendebo and Dan Anastos '11 also competed in the 3,000-meter event after missing the Judges' last two meets, and while Gendebo finished 18th place in 8:48.50, Anastos struggled with the layoff and finished last in 9:11.91.

Pisarik, the lone runner to compete on the women's side last Saturday, ran a personal-best time of 5:14.09 in the one-mile run to finish 20th out of 27 runners, one week after competing only in the distance medley relay event at the New England Division III Championships Feb. 23.

Despite the personal best, Pisarik said she still might have changed her strategy if given the chance.

"Looking back on it, I think I would have run the race differently, but there's no way you can plan a race going into it because you don't know how it's going to be run by everybody else," she said.

"But overall, I was happy with the time."

Many of the key runners on both squads remained sidelined, but assistant coach Peter Sampson said he hopes to have many of them back by next weekend. On the women's side, jumper Ali Sax '09 is still recovering after being hit by a car on campus before February break, while classmates Meaghan Casey '09 and Katy Agule '09 are nursing leg and back injuries, respectively. Captain Olivia Alford '08 was also held out of this weekend's race after her performances at the New England Division III Championships Feb. 23, in which she finished third in the 400-meter dash and anchored the 4-by-200-meter relay team to a fourth-place finish.

On the men's side, the status of Matt Jennings' 08 for next weekend is in doubt after he suffered a stress fracture in his foot.

Despite the injuries, Suher thinks the team will be able to perform well at the UAA Championships.

"I'm actually really excited [about the UAA Championships]. I think we've had some injuries over the past couple of weeks but everybody who's still out running is running really well," he said.

"I don't expect a whole lot team-scoring wise . because it's hard to compete with a teams like [Washington University in St. Louis] that have massive rosters, but I think we should do really well," he added.

Stone was a little less optimistic.

"I think this might be one of the tougher [UAA Championships] coming up for this team, but I think we can definitely finish in the top four, and I think that's kind of a goal right now," he said.

The UAA Championships will take place Friday and Saturday at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland at 10 a.m. each day.