Orono, ME ? The University of Hartford men's and women's track and field teams closed out their regular season with the America East Championships this past weekend. The team highlights included a pair of individual titles for Kaycee Martinez and Latasha Jarrett, the first time in program history a Hawk has won an individual event at the conference championships. Both teams finished in ninth place overall in the championship.
Martinez took home the individual championship in the 400-meter hurdles, a race she has excelled in all season. She set a new school record in that event, breaking her own mark, and finished less than a half second off of an NCAA qualifying time with her time of 1:01.27. Jarrett's individual title came in the heptathlon, a seven event race featuring the 200-meter dash, 800-meter run, 100-meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump and javelin throw. Jarrett beat out the second place finisher by only 21 points, with a total of 4,068 points. Within the seven events, Jarrett won the high jump, with a height of 5'3.75”, and the 200-meter dash, with a time of 26.35.
Sherilyn Nicholas fed off of Jarrett's success in the heptathlon, finishing in seventh place overall with a total score of 3,654. She finished second in the 800-meter run (2:25.87), third in the high jump (5'1.25”) and fifth in the javelin throw (82'9”). The Hawks also top individual finishes from Marisa Poleto in the 400-meter dash and Jarrett and Nicholas in the high jump. Poleto finished seventh overall in the 400 with a time of 59.62. Poleto also broke a school record with her preliminary time in the 400 dash with a time of 58.77. Jarrett and Nicholas finished third and sixth, respectively, in the high jump. Jarrett finished with a height of 5'2.25” and Nicholas topped a height of 5'0.25”.
The Hawks three relays were paced by the 4x400-meter team, which finished fifth overall, breaking a school record on the way. The 4x100-meter and 4x-800-meter teams finished in seventh place, with the 4x800 team breaking a school record. The 4x400 team finished with a time of 3:57.14. The team consisted of Poleto, Ariana Bass, Jarrett and Martinez. The 4x100 team of Bass, Kesha Rainford, Raquel Payne and Regina Roberts finished with a time of 50.49. The 4x800 team of Erika Schramm, Elizabeth Foster, Leanna Godfrey and Mahrukh Khawaja finished with a time of 9:51.27. The women's team saw two more school records before all was said and done, Schramm in the 800-meter run and Stefanie Lombardi in the 5000-meter run. Schramm broke the previous recordin the 800 by more than seven seconds, running a time of 2:18.80. Lombardi broke her own school record in the distance event with a time of 18:21.28.
The men's track and field team saw its top performances in the relays, the high jump, triple jump and the decathlon. The 4x100-meter relay saw a seventh place finish with a time of 44.37. The relay consisted of Chris Carr, Anthony Flammia, Greg Giddings and Stephan Jospitre. The 4x400-meter relay saw an eighth place finish overall with a time of 3:24.61. That relay consisted of Warren Lane, Fawaz Al-Sudairi, Matthew Le and Eric Ciccone.
Individually, Ryan Trupin, Jospitre and Alex Ivanov led the team. Trupin saw an eighth place finish in the high jump with a height of 6'0”. Jospitre saw the highest finish of the day with a sixth place showing in the long jump with a distance of 22'3.5”. Ivanov saw an individual first place in the decathlon winning the 1,500-meter portion of the 10 event race. The men's team saw one school record in the meet with Cicconne breaking Lane's 400-meter record with a time of 50.04, finishing fourth oveall.
