Worcester, MA - The University of Hartford men's and women's track and field teams competed at a quad meet hosted by the Holy Cross Crusaders on Saturday. The men's team finished fifth out of six teams, while the women finished third out of four teams. Overall the Hawks set or tied five school records, two on the men's side and three on the women's side.
On the men's side the two records came in the 4x400-meter relay and the high jump. The Hawks relay team bettered a record they set last weekend at the UMass Invitational. The relay of Fawaz Al-Sudairi, Matthew Le, Eric Ciccone and Warren Lane ran a time of 3:22.48, five seconds faster than their time a week ago. Ryan Trupin set the men's second record in the high jump, finishing second overall in the event. He saw a season best height of 6'4”, which ties the old school record, set in 2002 by Mark Muller and then tied last spring by Jaimaal Munir.
The women's records all came in individual events, the first on the track side in the 400-meter run with the second two in field events, the long jump and the javelin throw. Latasha Jarrett broke the school record in the long jump during her top finish in the heptathlon on Thursday and Sherilyn Nicholas tied her record of 16'7”, finishing third overall. Flake Gjonbalaj broke the javelin record with her sixth place finish in the event. She threw a distance of 110'. Finally, Kaycee Martinez broke the 400-meter record with her time of 59.27, finishing fifth overall. Marisa Poleto also would have broken the record in the 400-meter run with her sixth place finish of 59.53.
Keisha Rainford and Regina Roberts led the Hawks in the sprint events, both finishing in the top-eight in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes. Rainford posted a seventh place finish in both events with times of 13.06 and 26.87. Roberts finished eighth in the 100-meter and sixth in the 200-meter. She finished with times of 13.12 and 26.77. Stefanie Lombardi and Liz Foster led the Hawks through the middle distance events. Lombardi finished fifth in the 1500-meter (4:53.92) and sixth in the 800-meter (2:26.69) run. Foster finished seventh in both of those events with times of 5:01.88 in the 1500 and 2:29.42 in the 800.
Jarrett followed up her heptathlon win by winning the high jump, leading the Hawks field events. Jarrett finished with a height of 5' 3.75”. Nicholas finished second in the same event with a height of 5' 1.75”.
Christopher Carr and Eric Ciccone led the men's team in the sprint events. Carr finished sixth and eighth in the 100-meter and 200-meter respectively, while Ciccone finished just ahead of him in the 200-meter dash in seventh place. Carr ran times of 11.41 in the 100-meter and 23:09 in the 200-meter, while Ciccone finished with a time of 23:07 in the 200. Adam Wells and Anthony Flammia finished third and fourth in the 110-meter hurdles. Wells ran a time of 16.96, while Flammia finished in a time of 17:03.
On the field, the Hawks were led by Stephan Jospitre, Flammia and Gregory Giddings. Jospitre led the three to a 4-5-6 finish in the long jump. Jospitre set the mark for the three with a distance of 21'9”. Flammia finished with a distance of 20'9” and Giddings saw a distance of 20'6.25”.
The men's and women's track and field teams will compete at the Wildcat Invitational hosted by the University of New Hampshire this weekend. The Wildcat Invitational will be the final warm-up before the America East Championships on May 3 and 4.
