Fitzpatrick, Tufts DMR run to NCAA track title

Former Lynnfield High School track and basketball star Kaleigh Fitzpatrick is closing out her college career in much the same fashion as she did with the Lynnfield Pioneers. This past weekend, the Tufts senior track captain and MVP helped lead her Tufts University Distance Medley Relay team to a 1st Place finish at the NCAA DIII National Track and Field Championships at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio. The three-day annual championship event which was streamed live over the Internet by the NCAA was hosted on the ONU campus in its state-of-the-art facility for the fourth time in the last ten years.Fitzpatrick ran the 400M dash segment of the Distance Medley Relay (DMR) event joining with her three Tufts teammates Stephanie McNamara (1200M), Katy O’Brien (800M) and Catharine Beck (1600M) to power Tufts to a gold medal performance.Fitzpatrick and her DMR teammates had previously won the New England Open Championship in the same event against all NE Division I, II and III schools competing at Boston University’s indoor facility two weeks ago.In what has been a remarkable season for the entire Tufts women’s track team, the Jumbos captured the New England DIII Track and Field championship for the first time in the history of their program in a tense and exciting meet edging perennial track powerhouse Williams College by a slim margin of 7.5 points (Tufts 136-Williams 128.5) after all events.”It was a battle all day,” Tufts track coach Kristen Morwick said. “It was nerve-wracking going into the meet knowing we had a real shot. We just fought the whole day and worked for every point. The team really stepped it up.” Fitzpatrick, despite battling the flu, competed in four events, both the 200M and 400M sprints, the triple jump and the last event of the competition, the 4X400M relay contributing 27 points to her team’s total. At the conclusion Fitzpatrick was praised by her teammates and coach: “Kaleigh was just superhuman,” Morwick said.Fitzpatrick, who holds numerous LHS track and field records including total points, is a three-time NCAA Track All-American and honors student at Tufts who will graduate this spring with the unique distinction of having won an NCAA national championship trophy.