MAAC Championships, Day 1 at Rider: Two more school records!

The first day of the MAAC Championships at Rider featured two school records being set on the men’s side. Combined with Jesse Aprile’s record 100-meter dash at Vassar on Friday night, this made for three school records in less than a 24-hour period – a pretty neat feat.

The first school record was a dazzling and memorable 4x800 relay, a record that featured three seniors going out in a blaze of glory. Chris Vanzetta led off with a split of 1:56.1, handing off in the lead to David Marthy. Marthy battled with Iona’s Mitch Goose step for step. Although Goose was a step faster, David’s split of 1:52.4 was truly eye-popping. Matt Panebianco battled gamely in the third leg and kept us right there with a workmanlike 1:55.7 split. Will Griffin, the most unlikely member of the team given the fact that his last race was at the 10,000-meter distance, brought it home with a wonderful 1:54.7. The final time of 7:39.27 was a school record, the first sub-7:40 in school history and an IC4A qualifier for this relay for the second spring in a row.

In the next race of the night, the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Quimes DelaCruz battled back and forth with the eventual winner from Iona and wound up in second place in a school-record time of 9:05.71. We are hopeful that this time will punch him a ticket to the NCAA Regional meet; it will be a close call. He will not race the event again at the IC4A Championships. Nick Hughes finished sixth in the steeple to get a hard-earned point. Hughes has been battling a bad back for two weeks. Under any other circumstances, he would not have raced. But given the automatic point (there were only 6 entrants), he volunteered to lace em up and finish the race.

Our final scorer of the night was Jake Akey in the javelin. Jake is a most unique member of the team. Many of his teammates barely know him. He has nowhere to practice and he has not competed all season due to a major back injury incurred during a heavy lifting session in the weight room. Despite this, he showed up on Saturday and uncorked a great throw to get a very hard-earned sixth-place finish.

The men’s 10,000-meter run was a frustrating disappointment for us. The tempo and tone of the race is dictated by the lead distance runners in the conference, who choose to take a tactical approach. This makes things difficult for our athletes to succeed, and the results were predictable.

On the women’s side, freshman Nicki Nesi medaled in the steeplechase with her third-place finish. And our 4x800 relay did an excellent job for a patched-together team.

In all, everyone set the tone for the MAAC meet for us: We don’t score much, but we give it our best and leave it all out there every step of the way. Complete results and splits will be posted after the meet on Sunday night

MAAC Championships, Day 1

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ

Men’s results

3,200-meter relay

2-Marist (Chris Vanzetta, David Marthy, Matt Panebianco, Will Griffin) 7:39.27 *school record, IC4A qualifier

3,000-meter steeplechase

2-Arquimedes DelaCruz 9:05.71 *school record, IC4A qualifier

6-Nick Hughes 10:25.46

10,000-meter run

7-Arquimedes DelaCruz 32:14.98

8-Johnny Lee 32:56.24

9-Billy Hild 33:13.45

Javelin

6-Jake Akey 44.06 meters

Long jump

11-Aaron Kippins 5.89 meters

Women’s results

3,200-meter relay

5-Marist (Christine Coughlin, Becca Denise, Mariella Bilello, Annie Gould) 10:06.13

3,000-meter steeplechase

3-Nicki Nesi 11:34.83