The men’s and women’s track teams both finished second in the Connecticut College Invitational on Saturday to open their outdoor action. The men came in second out of four entrants, while the women finished second out of five teams.

The Cardinal men finished with 108 team points, well behind first-place Coast Guard (338) but comfortably ahead of Eastern Connecticut (89) and the host Camels (88). Wesleyan’s strength in the running events carried over from the spring, as Chris Foster ’09 finished third in the 800-meter run with a time of 2:00.77, while Justin Spring ’10 (4:08.14) and Jonah Blumstein ’09 (4:09.13) finished second and third, respectively, in the 1500m. In addition, the 4x100m relay team of Alex Iwamoto ’12, Kenton Atta-Krah ’09, Jadeene Gabay ’10 and Tommie Lark ’11 took second with a time of 0:45.81, while the 4×400 relay team of Scott Cole ’09, Chris Coleman ‘10, Foster, and Seth Hafferkamp ’12 also took second, clocking in at 3:36.60.

Wesleyan also had a strong showing in the field events. Newman Hoffman ’09 took second in the shot put with a distance of 41’ 9 1/4”, while Derek Kuwahara ’09 did the same in the javelin, throwing it a distance of 144’ 4”. Kuwahara also had a third-place distance of 123’ 11” in the discus, and Mike Moody ’10 threw the javelin 126’ 1” to secure third in the event.

The Wesleyan women racked up 149 team points, just behind the hosts (168) and ahead of Coast Guard (123), Eastern Connecticut (82) and Salve Regina (52). The Cardinals dominated the running events, with a top-three finisher in the 100-, 200-, 400-, 800-, 1500- and 500-meter events. Ravenna Neville ’10 contributed two of the Cardinals’ seven first-place finishes on the afternoon with a time of 4:56.70 in the 1500m and 18:20.93 in the 5000m. Wesleyan also boasted the second- and third-place finishers in the 1500m, as Liz Wheatley ’09 (4:56.89) and Lisa Sussman ’09 (5:02.96) finished alongside Neville. Kathryn Kulowski ’11 took second in the 100-meter dash, finishing in 0:13.97, and Kiran Sheffrin ’10 took third in the 200-meter dash with a time of 0:28.68. Sussman clocked in at 1:02.04 for first place in the 400m, while Jessica Levin ’11 (2:26.72), Lilly Fesler ’11 (2:27.15) and Julia Frieze ’12 (2:31.42) took the top three spots in the 800-meter run.

Wesleyan also had strong showings in the hurdles and relay events. Sheffrin (0:18.00) took third in the 100m hurdles, while the 4×100 relay team of Sheffrin, Kulowski, Yulhee Cho ’11 and Frieze took second with a time of 0:53.82. Wesleyan’s 4×400 relay team of Fesler, Sussman, Helen Dekorne ’12 and Frieze clocked in at 4:18.86 for first place in the event. In addition, Kulowski took second in the long jump with a distance of 16’ 1/4″, and Fesler (31’ 2”) finished first in the triple jump.

Two weeks earlier, the teams had ended the indoor season in their respective ECAC Division III meets, which were held March 6 and 7 at Tufts. The men finished tied for 34th in their meet with nine points. Lark took second in the triple jump with a jump of 46’ 2 3/4″, and Blumstein finished eighth in the 5000-meter run (15:16.81). St. Lawrence took first at the event with 53 points. The women finished tied for 23rd with 11 points in their meet. Sussman took second in the 800m with a time of 2:16.34, while Neville (18:03.61) and Wheatley (18:04.94) finished seventh and eighth, respectively, in the 5000m. Springfield won the team title with 62 points.

The teams resume action this weekend in the Trinity Invitational.