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Fifth Annual Berg/Seeger Classic Proclaimed a Success

The Fifth Annual Berg/Seeger Track & Field Classic for Mainstreamed and Deaf Prep Schools across America was held at Arizona School for the Deaf & Blind (ASDB) on April 20-21.

California School for the Deaf, Fremont (CSDF) came away with the Boys’ Team Overall Championship while Model Secondary School for the Deaf (MSSD) in Washington, D.C. took the Girls’ championship home.

CSDF boys’ team scored 158 points, a comfortable victory over second place Maryland School for the Deaf (MSD) with 123 points and California School for the Deaf, Riverside (CSDR) who came in third with 117.

The girls’ championship was much closer as MSSD had a four-point margin of victory with 116 over Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf (MSAD) who finished with 112 points. CSDF with a score of 109 for third but officially came into a second place tie with MSAD.

After all the scores were tallied on Saturday afternoon, CSDF and CSDR had 109 and 52 points, respectively. An USADTF official spotted an error with one athlete that was from CSDF but scored three points for CSDR. At that time, CSDF did not make a protest for the results so they received third place honors. Officially, MSAD and CSDF girls were tied for second with a score of 112, and CSDR’s actual score is 49, not 52.

At the Berg/Seeger Classic, a total of 132 athletes from 14 schools (11 Deaf, 3 Mainstreamed) competed. Over the weekend, 11 meet records were broken – 6 girls and 5 boys.

The Ruth T. Seeger award recipients for girls were: Elissa Letendre, SR from The Learning Center (TLC) in Massachusetts was named best Track Athlete while Lori Eldred, JR from MSSD was named Best Field Athlete. Sabina Shysh, SO from ASDB received Best All-Around Athlete honors.

The Thomas O. Berg award recipients for boys were: Mohamed Kamara, SR from MSD for best Track Athlete, and Gregory Spriggs-Cudjo, SR from CSDF was named Best Field Athlete. Taylor Koss, SR from Wisconsin School for the Deaf (WSD) received Best All-Around Athlete honors.

For more information from the 5th Berg/Seeger Classic, you can click on this link below, which will download a PDF document for Summary/Photos, School List, Roster, Results, Records and more.
Full Results

For the Top 10 Performances list of each event from Berg/Seeger in the 5-year history of the meet.
Top 10 Performances

Photos of the event can be seen at the SportsMX Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/SportsMX#!/SportsMX/photos

Video Clips

Crystle Marion

Senior High School Thrower breaks School Record, 8.5 inches away from Prep Record

St. Mary’s Senior Crystle Marion threw a 41′ 2″ in the Shot Put.


Senior Crystle Marion, of St. Mary’s School for the Deaf in Buffalo, New York, broke her own school record in the Shot Put with a throw of 41′ 2″.

St. Mary was playing against Falk School in a one-on-one meet on Thursday, April 19. Falk did not bring any female throwers to the meet, but the St. Mary female throwers were allowed to participate and their distances considered official.

Marion’s previous record was a throw of 38′ 3 ¼” in 2011 which broke the older school record previously held by Rena Primm in 1979 when she threw a mark of 37′ 7 ½”.

Marion is now only eight and a half inches away from the current prep record of 41′ 10 ½” in the Shot Put held by Brenda Bessner of Washington School for the Deaf set in 1988.

Leslye Kang & Michael Haynes

Two Gallaudet Athletes with Record-breaking Performance, one Record-tying Time Ruled Ineligible

Gallaudet Athletes Kang is only 2.22m (7′ 4″) from Javelin World Record, Haynes breaks 23-year old Gallaudet record in 110m Hurdles, Ransom ties record, but wind-aided of 2.2 meters per seconds rule disallows record-tying performance in the books.

Gallaudet Javelin Thrower Sets School and American Record
Gallaudet University’s Javelin Thrower Leslye Kang broke her school and American record with a throw of 43.98m (144′ 3″) at the Messiah Invitational in Grantham, PA on April 14.

Kang broke her old record on March 24 when she threw a 39.37m (129′ 2″) in the javelin. The new record is a 4.61m (15′ 1″) improvement.

With this record-breaking throw, Kang is closing on the Deaf Women’s World Record for the Javelin Throw currently held by Japanese athlete Yu Sato with a distance of 46.20m (151′ 7″) set at the 2008 World Deaf Athletics Championships in Izmir, Turkey. Kang is only 2.22m (7′ 4″) away from owning the world record.

Gallaudet Male Hurdler Breaks School Record
In 1989, Eric Roberts set a Gallaudet University school record with a time of 15.74 in the 110m Hurdles. That record fell last weekend on April 14th at the Messiah Invitational when Michael Haynes had a time of 15.64.

Originally, Roberts ran a 15.5 Hand-Timed (HT) at Catholic University of America Cardinal Classic. It is Track & Field standard for .24 seconds to be added to any HT finishes before Fully Automatic Time (FAT a.k.a. “Electronically Time”) became common in Track & Field. The .24-second rule applies to any non-relay event under 400 meters that is HT.

This means while Haynes did not run faster than Roberts’ HT unofficial of 15.5, Haynes ran a .10 second faster than the official time of 15.74, placing his name in the school record books.

Gallaudet Runner Ties American Record, Ineligible due to Wind-aided Time
Gallaudet University Hurdler Mariah Ransom was on her way to having her name placed in the American Record books. In the same Messiah Invitational, Ransom tied the American Record with a time of 14.75 in the 100m Hurdles.

However, the record was denied eligible as the run was wind-aided by +2.2 meters per second. For a record to be eligible, the wind-aid meters per second must be under +2. Ransom’s best-qualified time of the weekend was a 15.32 in the preliminaries.

Ransom also ran a time of 1:07.80 in the 400m Hurdles, almost a second slower off the school record she owns with a time of 1:06.98.

Mariah Ransom

Mariah Ransom breaks Gallaudet Records in third straight week

For the third straight week, Hurdler Mariah Ransom rewrote the Gallaudet University record books in the 100m Hurdles and 400m Hurdles.

Gallaudet University and 2009 Summer Deaflympics Hurdler Mariah Ransom set a new Gallaudet Record in two events for the third consecutive week at the Goucher Invitational held in Towson, MD.

On March 24, the old 100m Hurdles record was at 16.34. Ransom ran a 15.43, then broke it in the following week on March 31 with a time of 15.39.

At the Goucher Invitational prelims, Ransom appeared to break the school record with a time of 15.16 but it did not count due to the run being wind-aided by 3.1 meters per second (m/s). However, in the Finals, Ransom bettered that time, running a record-breaking time of 14.93 with a wind-aided of only 0.5 m/s.

For the 400m Hurdles, The old record was 1:12.24 which Ransom broke with a 1:07.27 run on March 24 then again on March 31 with a time of 1:06.98.

Ransom made a slight improvement on the 400m Hurdles with a time of 1:06.82, barely beating her time last week by .16 seconds.

Ransom is getting closer to the American record of 14.75 in the 100m Hurdles by the week. Her personal best in the 100m Hurdles is 14.81 which she set in 2010 during her senior year at Berkmar High in Georgia. That 14.81 is the current Girls Prep record.

Story link from Gallaudet – http://www.gallaudetathletics.com/sports/wtrack/2011-12/releases/recap_goucher

Janna-Vander-Meulen-Western-Oregon

Vander Meulen sets Women’s Indoor Collegiate Record

Janna Vander Meulen of Western Oregon University sets record in the 60m Hurdles.


Western Oregon University senior athlete Janna Vander Meulen broke the Women’s Indoor Collegiate Record in the 60m Hurdles.

Vander Meulen ran a time of 9.06 at the GNAC Indoor Championships held at Nampa, Idaho on February 17, 2012.

Vander Meulen is also the holder of Women’s Outdoor Collegiate Record in the 100m Hurdles with time of 14.82 which she set last year at the John Knight Twilight Invitational in Monmouth, Oregon.

Erin LaFave

Erin LaFave sets seven Indoor American and Collegiate records

Indoor Long Distance runner Erin LaFave broke seven of her own records: three Women’s Indoor American and four Collegiate Records.

Rochester Institute of Technology and 2009 Summer Deaflympian runner Erin LaFave broke seven of her own records during the Indoor Track & Field season.

LaFave previously held the seven records, and broke all of them. So it also meant she set a new Personal Record time for her in those events.

The four Women’s Indoor Collegiate Records (ICR) LaFave set was the 1,000m, one mile, 3,000m and 5,000m run. The first three of records listed also was good enough to break the Women’s Indoor American Records (IAR).

LaFave already holds the IAR for the 5,000m with a time of 18:09.80 in 2008. Her ICR record was 18:53.84 which was faster than the 19:06.12 mark she set in 2009. The ICR record took place in the Liberty League Championships at Canton, New York on February 11, 2012.

In the 1000m, LaFave ran a 3:09.52 at the RIT Black/Orange Invitational in Rochester, New York on February 17, 2012, beating 3:12.44, which were both an ICR and IAR in 2009.

In the Mile run, LaFave finished with a time of 5:19.57 also at the Liberty League Championships, improving 22.71 seconds from her older ICR and IAR of 5:42.28 in 2009.

In the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Indoor Championships, LaFave ran a 10:25.91 in the 3,000m which was an improvement from the 10:49.43 mark she set in 2009.