BOSTON— University of Vermont’s Carmen Lagala (Montpelier, Vt./Montpelier), University at Albany’s Jessica Ortman (Williamsville, N.Y./Williamsville South) and Gered Burns (Altamont, N.Y./Guilderland) have been named America East Women’s and Men’s Indoor Track Performers of the Week. Boston U.’s Tahari James (Bradford, Conn.), Stony Brook University’s Justin Miller (Smithtown, N.Y./Hauppague) and UMBC’s Mike Zyvoloski (Elkridge, Md./Long Reach) are this week’s Women’s and Men’s America East Indoor Field Performers of the Week. The awards were announced Tuesday (December 6).
Lagala, a sophomore at Vermont, led the Vermont men’s and women’s track teams at the season opening meet, the Husky Carnival, hosted by Northeastern University this past weekend.
Lagala won the 500-meter race with a time of 1:15.97. She owned the winning time in the second qualifying heat, beating six athletes from the first heat who were all seeded faster than her, including last year’s America East Champion.
Ortman won the 1,000 meters at Yale’s Lidlifter Invitational on Dec. 3. Her time of 2:57.42 qualified her for the ECAC Indoor Championship, and she was the only member of the women’s team to qualify in the opening meet. Ortman, a freshman, finished only four seconds back from Albany’s school record of 2:53.20.
Burns, a senior at Albany, won the one-mile race in a time of 4:11.67 at Yale’s Lidlifter Invitational, Albany’s season opener. He held an 11-second margin of victory over the next-closest competitor and finished three seconds better than the IC4A standard to qualify for the indoor championship. Burns came within 1.10 of Albany’s school record of 4:10.57, set by Joseph McCullen in 1992.
James, a sophomore at Boston U., placed first in the long jump with a distance of 5.73 meters. He ran the third leg of the 4x400 team that placed second with a time of 3:55.15.
Miller, a sophomore at Stony Brook, led the Seawolves to a successful indoor season-opener at the Fordham Quad meet, leading a sweep of the shot put with a winning throw of 48’5".
Sophomore Zyvoloski had a stellar opening to the season, qualifying for the IC4A meet, after winning the weight throw at the Bucknell Bison Opener with a mark of 17.31m (56-09.50). Zyvoloski’s mark topped the second place mark of 17.18m.