Kingston, RI - The University of Hartford men's and women's track and field teams competed at the URI Mega Meet and the URI Women's Invitational on Friday and Saturday. The men's team finished ninth of nine teams with 18 total points, while the women's team finished in sixth place with a season best of 35 points.
The women's team was highlighted by two school record performances, one relay and one individual. Stefanie Lombardi recorded the individual record, breaking her own time in the 3,000 meter run. Her new time was 10:29.55 and placed her in third overall. The Hawks relay record came in the 4x400 meter event with Kaycee Martinez, Ariana Bass, Latasha Jarrett and Sherilyn Nicholas combining for a second place finish with a time of 4:07.68.
Two women's sprinters earned top-eight finishes in the 55-meter dash. Anike Orimogunje finished in seventh (8.07 seconds), while Regina Roberts finished one-thousandth of a second behind her in eighth place. The pair ran faster times in the preliminaries with Roberts at 7.90 and Orimogunje at 7.92.
Martinez combined with Roberts to pick up four points in the 400-meter dash. Martinez finished in sixth place overall with her time of 1:01.36, while Roberts finished in eighth place with her time of 1:02.93. Bass also had a top performance in the 500-meter run with her time of 1:21.83 good for fifth place overall.
On the field side of the meet, Nicholas picked up points in two jumping events. Her first was as part of a four-way tie in the high jump with her height of 5'1”. She was joined in that tie by Jarrett. Nicholas also finished in eighth place in the long jump with a distance of 15' 2.25”.
The men's team was highlighted by its field performances. The Hawks had three athletes finish in the top-eight in the triple jump. Anthony Oluwanifise placed in two events with his best, a third place finish in the triple jump with a distance of 44' 6.75”. He also had a long jump of 21' 5.5”, which put him in seventh place overall. Joining Oluwanifise in the triple jump standings was Jaimaal Munir and Stephan Jospitre in fifth and sixth place respectively. Munir finished with a distance of 41'10”, with Jospitre posting a distance of 41' 3.75”.
The men's runners were led by David Slifer who finished 12th in the 200-meter dash and 14th in the 400-meter dash. He finished with times of 23.93 and 52.29 respectively.
The track teams will next compete on Saturday, February 10, at the Wesleyan Invitational in Middletown, Conn.
