Teams from the Northeast who fail to make the NCAAs head to one location for the annual IC4A and ECAC meets. This past weekend, the Reggie Lewis Center at Boston University stood as the host for both of this season’s meets.

The IC4A competition for the men and ECAC for the women contain weekend-long events that require athletes to attain certain qualifying standards to even be allowed to compete. The meets are the last competitions before the NCAA championships.

Day 1 of the women’s competition started with the 4 by 400-meter relay, where the Bearcats ran a 3:48.8 in the preliminary rounds to qualify them for the finals. In the finals, they bested their own time with a new school record of 3:46.6 to place them seventh overall. The relay included seniors Caitlin Wright, Hana Wright and Jasmin Hinson and freshman Jessica Hennig. The performance left an impression on head coach Mike Thompson.

“I felt that the women ran exceptionally well in the 4 by 4, that was definitely the highlight of the weekend,” Thompson said. “They ran six seconds faster than they ran at conferences; that’s a ridiculous amount of improvement.”

Day 1 of the men’s competition began Saturday with the qualifying rounds. The action kicked off with the men’s mile, featuring Bearcat junior Casey Quaglia running a new personal best of 4:07.31 to come in 11th, only one place shy of the finals. He was followed by teammate Andrew Ugolino in 33rd.

Binghamton sophomore Michael Scheick ran 2:28.07 in the 1,000-meter to place eighth, qualifying him for the finals, while freshman Aaron Ghobrial trailed him in 24th. Scheick went on to place sixth in the finals race the next day.

Bearcat freshman Cory Poepperling finished his heptathlon in 11th place. Teammate and junior Cazal Arnett was in championship form as he powered out a fourth-place finish in the 400m with a time of 46.9. He also anchored the 4 by 400m relay that finished sixth overall in a time of 3:12.2. The relay included his teammates freshman Zachary Keefer and juniors Christian Smith and Andrew Haupt.

“They were hoping for a 3:10, which would have gotten them on the nationals list,” Thompson said of the relay. “They had a really great meet, but they were hoping for a little more.”

The distance medley relay had a performance that saw all four members running at or better than their personal bests. The team featured junior Jason Houghtaling, sophomore Karl Schnabl and freshmen Brendan Connell and Michael Jennings. The relay finished in 10th, with a time of 10:01.5, just outside of qualifying for the finals. Distance coach Annette Acuff was particularly pleased with the freshmen.

“To have Connell run 4:11 in the mile and Jennings run 3:01 in the 1,200-meter, it was a bit of a surprise but really quite impressive,” she said.

Graduate student Chris Gaube ran a school record in the 5,000-meter race with a time of 14:32, finishing in 13th, and freshman Jeff Martinez was not far behind in a time of 14:41, good for 17th place.

Overall the coaches were happy with the team’s performance.

“Most of our kids had their best performances of the year,” Acuff said. “It was a great finish to the indoor season; we look good going into the outdoor season.”

Junior Erik van Ingen officially qualified for the NCAA Indoor Track and Field championships in the mile on Monday night. The two-day meet will be held this weekend at the University of Arkansas.

Van Ingen posted his fastest time of 3:59.58 at the Penn State National Open on Jan. 30, which was good enough for a No. 13 ranking heading into the meet. The top 16 runners were selected to the NCAA championships.

On Friday, the trials are set to start at 5:55 p.m. The top eight runners will advance to the finals, which will be held at 7:15 p.m. on Saturday.

Van Ingen is set to participate at an NCAA championship meet for the second time in his career. He advanced to the cross country championships this past November.

Erik is the third Binghamton athlete to qualify for a NCAA Division I Track and Field championship meet. Rory Quiller went to three indoor championships and a pair of outdoor championships during his career at pole vault. Current junior Cazal Arnett qualified for the 400-meter dash at last year’s indoor meet.