This past Sunday, the men and women’s track and field team brought back five wins among the team and one NCAA provisional mark.
The lone provisional mark belonged to sophomore Trinity Clark, as she won the javelin throw with a 44.04-meter throw. This mark currently ranks 15th in the nation for best javelin throws among women.
On the men’s side, freshman Dan Hyatt won the pole vault with a 4.45-meter clearance. With just one win over the past two meets, head coach John Papa said the guys will need to step it up after seeing how dominant Shippensburg University was.
“We definitely have to pick it up a notch,” Papa said.
As for the women, three of the remaining four wins came in the field. Sophomore Cecily Greggs picked up a win in the high jump with a 1.60-meter clearance.
In the pole vault, freshman Kendall Grossman won with a 3.50-meter clearance. Following Grossman was fellow freshman Heidi Bednarz with a 3.20-meter clearance, which was enough for second place. Sophomores Olvia Sentle and Kyleigh Murphy, along with freshman Elise Rota also finished in the top ten of the pole vault. Sentle in fifth with a 3.05-meter clearance, Murphy in seventh with a 2.90-meter clearance, and Rota in ninth with a 2.60-meter clearance. Even though the women did not perform last season due to COVID-19, Papa says this looks normal for them.
“A lot of the times some athletes get a little rusty,” Papa said. “But it looks like they picked up where they left off.”
On the track, the 4×100 team finished first as freshman group Samantha Gilbert, Thai-Lin Pierce, and Lorna Speigle joined junior Reagan Hess in winning in 48.21 seconds. Also for the women, in the 4×400, they finished second in 4:00.48 as Speigle joined sophomore Morgan Donatelli and seniors Courtney Nunley and Allyson Stitzer. Donatelli also finished in second in the 400-meter dash in 58.66 seconds and also competed in the 200-meter dash where she finished in ninth in 26.07 seconds.
On the men’s side, in the 4×100 meter relay the group of freshman Bryan Dworek, sophomore Jonathan Marfisi, junior Mitch Vleminckx, and sophomore Parker Reed finished second in 42.38 seconds. Dworek also finished the 100-meter dash in fifth in a 10.78 second time.
In the hurdles, freshman Brendan Lewis finished third in the 110-meter In the 400-meter hurdles, senior Gunner Coleman finished in fourth with a 58.08 time.
Closing out the throwing events, freshman Skylar Sherry finished in third in the javelin behind Clark with a 38.75-meter throw. In the hammer throw, sophomore Jena Reinheimer finished in second with a 48.82-meter throw, and also finished in fifth place in the discus with a 40.62-meter toss. Also in the hammer, sophomore Rachel Hutchinson placed fifth with a 44.87-meter throw. In the shot put, freshman Sarah Corrie hit a 12.52-meter throw which put her in fifth place. Freshman Kamryn Snyder finished the shot put in eighth with an 11.99-meter throw
For the men, junior Alec Morris placed fourth in the hammer throw with a 51.01-meter throw. Morris also placed inside the top 10 in the discus as he recorded a 40.90-meter throw, which finished him in ninth. Staying with discus, junior Brennan McTighe placed fourth with a toss of 43.31-meter throw. In the shot put, freshman Eric Schulz finished in sixth place with a 14.53-meter throw.
In the jumping events, freshman Gavin Thomas finished in fourth in the long jump with a 6.73 meter jump in the high jump. In the high jump, freshman Robert Kozares and junior Ryan McQuown finished fifth and sixth, both with a clearance of 1.85 meters.
This Thursday and Friday, SRU will host two separate meets. First on Thursday is the Mike Kowal Multi Meet, which will include the first five events within the men’s decathlon and the first four women’s heptathlon events. On Friday, the rest of the events will take place, and Papa said things might look the same as past meets as they are up against some of the same conference opponents they’ve already competed with.
“I think we’ll have similar results,” Coach Papa said. “But we’re all hoping to have season-best performances.”
