Men and women's track and field teams battle in Big East Indoor Championships

The SU men and women’s track and field teams competed in the Big East Indoor Championships this weekend in Akron, Ohio. The men took home seventh in the last meet of the indoor season, while the women finished eleventh.

Despite a subpar performance, SU took home one individual victory on the men’s side. Kwaku Boah finished the men’s weight throw with a toss of 19.89m, the first to do so for the Orange since 1991. Boah also competed in the shot put event, finishing twelfth with a throw.

The men’s 60 meter hurdles produced a strong showing for SU, placing three competitors in the top five. Amadou Gueye finished in second with a time of 7.92, while Matthew Callanan (8:13) and Donald Pollitt (8:20) finished in fourth and fifth, respectively.

Frank Taylor finished fourth in the men’s long jump with a leap of 7.07m. His teammate, Victor Nwosu, jumped 6.10m and finished eleventh.

A total of seven men’s distance runners competed in both the 3000 and 5000 meter runs. Tito Medrano led all SU competitors, finishing in the top 10 in both events. Medrano’s time of 14:22.07 was good enough for a sixth place finish in the 5000 meter run, while he finished in eighth in the 3000 meter run in a time of 14:22.07.  Corey Robinson also competed in the 3000 meter run, finishing tenth with a time of 8:24.62, while Pat Dupont finished eleventh in the 5000 meter run with a time of 14:35.64.  Steven Weeks (8:24) and Reed Kamyszek (8:26) rounded out the 3000-meter run for the Orange, finishing in twelfth and fourteenth, respectively. As for the 5000 meter run, Robert Molke (14:38) and Max Straneva (14.42) were the last SU competitors to finish, receiving thirteenth and fifteenth place, respectively.

The men’s 4x800 meter relay team of Greg Manning-Smith, Andrew Nelson, Nathan Saviet, and Joseph Bubniak finished ninth. SU’s distance medley team of Andrew Palmer, Tyler McCully, Nelson, and Weeks finished seventh.

Bubniak, the lone SU competitor in the mile run, finished eighth.

There were no first-place finishes for the Syracuse women, but there were a lot of top 10 finishes, especially in the 5000 meter run. Catherine DeSarle (third place) led her teammates with a time of 16:17. Natalie Busby (sixth) finished behind DeSarle with a time of 16:34. Sarah Pagano (16:40) and Heather Stephens (16:53) finished in ninth and tenth, respectively.

DeSarle also ran the last leg of the women’s 4x800 meter relay, which comprised of Liz McCarter, Michelle Riley, Busby and DeSarlie for a sixth place finish. Two of the runners for the 4x800 team also ran in the women’s distance medley team. McCarter, Kelly Anne McCarthy, Riley, and Lauren Penney finished fifth in the medley run.

Penney, the anchor for the medley team, also had a strong showing in the 3000 meter run. She finished in eighth with a time of 9:28.23. Behind her, Rebekah MacKay (9:47), Cassie White (9:49) and Stephens (9:52) finished twelfth, fourteenth, and sixteenth, respectively.

Kelsey Rubeor had two spectacular performances in the women’s high jump and pentathlon. She jumped 1.75m to a fifth place finish, while placing third in the pentathlon with 3699 points. Teammates Amber Passalagua and Erica Belanger finished sixth and eleventh, respectively.

In the women’s triple jump, Ieva Staponkute jumped 12.38m for a third place finish.

Rounding out the women competitors for SU were Sa’De Lewis, who finished twelfth in preliminaries in the 60 meter hurdles, and Ashley Keyes and Lareea Chisholm, who finished twenty third and twenty fifth in the 60 meter dash preliminaries.

Although the Big East Championships are over, 23 SU athletes will compete in either the IC4A or the ECAC Championship on March 5 in Boston, Mass. 13 men and two relay teams will represent Syracuse in the IC4As and 10 women and one relay will compete in the ECACs.