The Slippery Rock University men’s track team secured 28 Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference marks and two NCAA provisional marks at the Bison Outdoor Classic Last weekend.
“It was a good meet with very good competition, and we were able to go out there and showcase what Slippery Rock track and field has to offer,” junior thrower David Reinhardt said. “We finally had nice weather to compete in and the team is making big strides every day. We are looking forward for bigger and better things to compete as the season progresses.”
The meet began with the pole vault group. Jordan Pacheco placed third overall with a vault of 4.95 meters. Pacheco was the first Division II athlete finisher in the event. His vault is currently first in the PSAC and eleventh among all Division II vaults. Michael Horrigan, Cody Colagrande and Andrew Koksal followed behind in seventh, eighth and ninth place respectively.
The throw crew also had a good day at the meet, with David Reinhardt meeting the NCAA provisional mark in the javelin with a throw of 58.76 meters. He placed sixth overall in the event. Reinhardt also competed in the discus and took 20th with a throw of 43.50 meters. Nick Garuccio took 24th in the event at 41.31 meters. Reinhardt and Garuccio both competed in the hammer throw, placing 15th and 24th with throws of 49.0 meters and 46.73 meters. Jerrod Galloway rounded out the top throws in the shot put, taking 13th with a throw of 15.28 meters.
Hunter Williams started the sprints off with a personal record in the 400-meter dash placing seventh with a time of 46.71 seconds. James Chandler and Monte Chapman also competed in the event, placing 12th and 19th with times of 49.10 and 49.64 seconds respectively.
Jacob VanHouten and Logan Mooney competed in the 400-meter hurdles and placed sixth and 10th at 54.20 seconds and 55.32 seconds. Andrew Schroder also ran in the event, taking 21st with a time of 56.64 seconds. Erik Record and Brandon Vanderbrook took 16th and 17th in the 200-meter dash with times of 22.51 seconds and 22.57 seconds respectively.
The 4×100 meter relay consisted of Record, Vanderbrook, Chapman and Williams. The crew took sixth place with a time of 42.42 seconds. The 4×400 meter relay was run by VanHouten, Williams, Chandler and Chapman. The men took third place and improved their personal best time. The time was 3:15.83, just off the school record of 3:15.00.
The middle distance and distance men finished off the last of the events on the track. Tyler Palenchak and Tyler Melius competed in the 800-meter run and finished with times of 1:55.56 and 1:56.49. Melius also competed in the invitational section of the 1,500-meter run and ran a personal best of 3:55.97. Ryan Thompson, Palenchak and Stephen Shephard competed in the unseeded heat of the 1,500-meter and finished with times of 3:57.46, 4:00.04 and 4:00.80. Thompson took 12th in the run. Jeremy Parsons competed in the 5,000-meter run and finished with a time of 15:05.25. Charlie Frank also ran in the 5,000-meter run and finished with a time of 15:20.58. Theo Reynolds ran in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and took 18th overall with a time of 9:47.30.
Jaron Martin rounded out the distance events with a personal best in the 10,000-meter run with a time of 31:27.33.
“Overall, we had a good weekend,” SRU head coach John Papa said. “We finally had some good weather and we had a lot of new people reach qualifying marks and had numerous personal bests.”
The Green and White is set to compete in their last home meet of the season Saturday at the Dave Labor Memorial Invitational. The Rock will compete at the PSAC meet in less than two weeks.
