Sands Wins High Jump, Abrantes Breaks 400 Mark to Lead Women's Track & Field

By Jim Fenton

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Senior Serenity Sands (East Bridgewater, Mass.) was a winner and fellow senior Kiara Abrantes (Somerset, Mass.) broke a school record for the Bridgewater State University indoor women's track & field team Saturday.

The Bears had athletes competing at both the Crimson Open, hosted by Harvard University, and the Bruce Lehane Scarlet & White Invitational, hosted by Boston University.

Sands placed first in her event at the Gordon Indoor Track with a season-best jump of five feet, 6.5 inches (1.69m), ahead of second place Katherine Kempff of MIT (5'3.75"/1.62m).

Sands earned All-America honors last year, placing fourth at the NCAA Division III Championships with a school-record performance.

Sands was also 13th in the long jump (14'8.5"/4.48m).

At Boston University, Abrantes continued her productive season by breaking her own BSU record in the 400-meter dash.

Abrantes finished in 11th place with a time of 55.78 seconds, competing against athletes from mostly Division I schools as well as track clubs.

Abrantes had established the record of 56.65 seconds at the Mini Meet on Dec. 14 at BU.

In Cambridge, graduate student Alison McDonough (Halifax, Mass.) placed in a pair of events at the Harvard Open.

McDonough was second in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.82 seconds and was fifth in the long jump with a leap of 16 feet, five inches (5.00m).

Graduate student Jailene Escalera (Rockland, Mass.) also placed in two events at Harvard.

Escalera was third in the 400 with a personal-best time of 59.83 seconds and finished sixth in the 200 in 26 seconds.

Senior Lily Valcovic (East Taunton, Mass.) took seventh place in the 3,000 with a PR of 11:10.18.

Freshman Grace Inacio (Taunton, Mass.) was seventh in the 200 with a personal-best time of 26:05 and finished 11th in the 400 in 1:04.21.

Graduate student Juliana Patrone (Wilmington, Mass.) finished eighth in the high jump (5'0.25"/1.53m) and senior Kate Brown (Acushnet, Mass.) was ninth in the 800 in 2:32.06.

Freshman Chloe Davies (Foxborough, Mass.) was 13th in the high jump (4'9"/1.45m) and senior Natalie Kalgren (Ayer, Mass.) was 16th in the shot put (30'7.5"/9.33m) and 18th in the weight throw (32'2.75"/9.82m).

At the BU meet, junior Naomi Cass (Westport, Mass.) finished in 10th place in the 5,000-meter run with a PR of 17:32.97. That was just under 11 seconds off the school record (17:22.23) set in 2013 by Molly Rouillard.

The Bears will next compete in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship on Feb. 16 at Wheaton College in Norton.