The Binghamton men’s and women’s track and field teams competed in the Sykes & Sabock Challenge in Pennsylvania over the weekend. Despite no team scoring, several Bearcats finished in the top 10 of their respective events with redshirt freshman Brian Luciano, senior Jenna Chan and graduate student Mark Scanlon breaking Binghamton records in their respective events.
“Yeah, we’re definitely in a good place, and today was a really solid day across the board,” said Binghamton head coach Mike Thompson. “We had good jumpers, good sprinters, good hurdlers, good distance people, good throwers, lot of [personal records], couple school records — a few school records actually.”
Eleven Bearcat men placed in the top 10 of their respective events — with three finishing in first. Luciano finished first in the weight throw with a distance of 66-1.75, breaking his previous school record of 65-5. Junior Joey Cardascia captured a first-place finish in the 500m with a time of 1:03.55, and Scanlon finished first in the 600m with a time of 1:20.02, also breaking the school record of 1:20.56 set back in 2014. Capturing a silver medal was freshman Liam Cody in 600m with a time of 1:23.64.
Senior Brandon Love finished third in the pole vault with a distance of 4.78. In the men’s mile, senior Josh Stone clocked in a time of 4:07.99, secured him a third-place finish. Two runners also finished in fourth in their respective events — junior Jaston Ormsby in the weight throw with a distance of 61-5.5 and sophomore Samson Joseph in the 200m with a time of 22.03. Binghamton also finished in fourth in the men’s 4x400m race with a team composed of junior Oliver Madariaga, Joseph, freshman Logan Hayes and Cardascia — finishing with a time of 3:16.88. Finally, graduate student Ryan Guerci finished sixth in the men’s mile with a time of 4:10.97 and graduate student Adrian Rippstein finished seventh in hurdles with a distance of 8.48.
“Well, the school records were [Luciano] in the weight throw, [Scanlon] in the 600 and [Chan] in the 60 hurdles,” Thompson said. “So yeah, they obviously, they had fantastic days.”
On the women’s side, the Bearcats captured several top-10 finishes. Chan finished first in hurdles with a distance of 8.46, breaking her previous school record of 8.49. Also competing in the 60m hurdles was freshman Dami Modupe, who finished fourth with a distance of 8.66. Junior Lucciana Robertson competed in the high jump, capturing a silver medal with a distance of 1.70.
In the 500m race, junior Hillary Abankwa finished in fifth with a time of 1:13.68. Also capturing a fifth-place finish was Binghamton as a team in the 4×400. Competing for the Bearcats were graduate student Sophia Morone, sophomore Angie Mesa-Espinosa, freshman Kaya Duran and Abankwa. Finally, Duran also competed in the 500m, finishing seventh with a time of 1:16.44.
“[Robertson] in the high jump had a season-best, and I think ties for second best jump all time,” Thompson said. “[Stone] had a great mile, [Ormsby] also had a big PR in the weight throw finishing I believe finishing third, [Modupe] ran a big season best in the 60 hurdles. There were a lot of season bests in PR, so it was good across the board.”
Leaving Penn State with several gold, silver and bronze medals and with one weekend of meets remaining before the America East (AE) conference championships, each meet will help BU prepare in hopes of bringing home a win at the conference championships.
“I think it’s all starting to come together,” said Thompson. “We have one meet now before the conference meet, and I think we’re in a perfect place.”
Binghamton will now compete in two separate meets at Boston University and at the Big Apple Invitational. Each invitational will run from Friday to Saturday, with the first meet at Boston University starting on Friday, Feb. 9. First event is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the Boston University Track and Field Center in Boston, Massachusetts.