By Eddie Young
Sports Editor
The College’s men’s and women’s track and field teams were spread out among neighboring states, as they sent athletes to compete in events at New York University, Alvernia University and Ithaca College this past weekend.
The events started for the College on Feb. 2 at the Armory in New York City as they took place in the NYU Division III Invitational. Jack Attali was the star of the show for the College on the men’s side with his two first place finishes. The freshman’s time of 21.84 in the men’s 200-meter race broke a school record, being 13-tenths of a second faster than the previous record for that event, which was set in 2002. He also ran the men’s 60-meter hurdles in 8.15 seconds, which gave him his second victory of the day, and the College its first two victories out of seven across three events on the weekend.
“It feels amazing to see my hard work from the offseason start to pay off,” Attali, a finance major, said. “And there is more to come.”
Also getting a first place finish for the Lions was sophomore Brandon Chen. He ran a personal best 8:32.17 in the men’s 3,000-meter run, winning the event by five seconds. The first year runner used his cross country skills that sent him to the NCAA Championships last semester to help him seal this win.
“I was pretty content with my performance and it felt great to win,” Chen, a secondary education and mathematics major, said. “This race gave me a lot of confidence going into the indoor championship season starting with the NJACs, and I hope to help TCNJ be highly competitive at that meet.”
The women for the Lions also put together a great outing in New York. Junior Kerri McCarthy won the women’s shot put event with a throw of 12.47 meters, five-hundredths of a meter further than the second place finisher. Senior Kayley Harnett also took home a victory for the College, as her clearing of the 1.60-meter bar gave her the top spot in the women’s high jump.
The next event came on Feb. 3, as the College sent distance runners to Alvernia to compete in the 5000-meter races of the Plex Shootout. The men placed two top five finishers, as junior Brian Micco came in third and freshman Evan Melito came in fourth. Micco finished with a time of 15:47.54, 12 seconds behind the second place finisher, and Melito finished 9 seconds later with a time of 15:56.00.
Of the four women the College sent to Alvernia, sophomore Savannah Hodgens put together the best performance. She finished in seventh place with a time of 19:35.98.
The final of the three events for the College was the Bomber Invitational at Ithaca, which took place from Feb. 3- 4. Sophomore Jayvee Dumas was the only male athlete to compete for the College, as he competed in the heptathlon. He was the winner of the hepathlon’s pole vault event, as he peaked at vaulting over a bar 4.25 meters high, and he came in second in the heptathlon’s 60-meter hurdles race with a time of 8.85 seconds. These two top finishes helped Dumas to finish in third place overall for the heptathlon.
On the women’s side, junior Eliza Brunjac starred for the College, as she got a third place finish in the pentathlon. She won the pentathlon’s 800-meter race, running it in 2:24.48, and she placed second in the pentathlon’s 60-meter hurdles with a time of 9.11 seconds.
The Lions will hope to build off of the success of this weekend for the rest of the season. They will travel up to Boston next weekend to compete in the David Hemery Valentine Invitational at Boston University.
