Boston University’s men’s and women’s indoor track and field teams are sitting pretty after the official preseason rankings were released.
The women, last year’s America East Champions, received seven of eight possible first place votes in the coach’s poll, putting them atop the conference preseason standings, while the men’s team were ranked third in their conference.
Sixty-three total points for BU’s women was just good enough to rank them ahead of the University at Albany (58), which garnered the two remaining first-place votes. Rounding out the top three championship favorites was the University of New Hampshire with 47 overall points.
The top performers returning from last year’s championship squad are senior Abby Sadwoski, winner of the mile and 1,000-meter runs, and junior Tahari James, winner of both the triple and long jumps and runner-up in the 55-meter dash.
The race for the top spot in the men’s poll was not as close, with Albany getting 64 points, including eight first-place votes. That easily put them above second place New Hampshire (55). BU (47 points) sits in third place with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (44) and Binghamton University (39) points breathing down their necks.
The men have two first place runners returning this season, senior Matt Howard and junior David Proctor. Howard won the 400-meter dash while Proctor took first in the 1000-meter run last year.
The America East Championship is scheduled to take place at the Boston University Track and Tennis Center on February 16-17.
