NEW HAVEN, Conn. – After announcing a 12 meet regular season schedule the University of New Haven Men's Track and field team opened up their season taking the short drive to Southern Connecticut State to compete at the Elm City Challenge before splitting the team and sending half to Boston to compete at the Suffolk Relays at the Reggie Lewis Center.
Opening up the Elm City Meet, Nile Colson (Rochester, N.Y./Aquinas Institute) qualified for the finals with a prelim time of 6.63 seconds in the 55 meter dash. In the finals with the fourth seed, Colson beat his prelim time by .01 seconds and moved up in the standings finishing third with a time of 6.62 seconds. During the weekend Colson also traveled to Boston competing in the 400 meter where he finished with the second best time crossing in 51.06 ahead of teammate Ryan Williams (Malverne, N.Y./Valley Stream North) who finished third with a time of 51.17.
Jordany Dely (Spring Valley, N.Y./Paramus Catholic) and Jordan Emile (/) started their seasons off just where they did a year ago going one, two in the 55m Hurdles prelims running time of 7.70 seconds and 7.82 seconds. With the top two times in the finals, both shaved off their prelim times with Dely running at 7.63 to take first in the finals just ahead of Emile who finished second with a time of 7.78 seconds. The duo followed up their win at Southern, traveling to Boston on Saturday and competing at the Suffolk relays in the 60m Hurdles. In the prelims it was Emile crossing with the best time ahead of teammate Abdiel Tejada and Dely but in the finals it was Dely getting the best of his teammates. Dely finished first in the finals crossing in 8.29 ahead of Emilie who finished third with a time of 8.47 seconds.
In the 400m dash the Chargers took home second and third in the meet. Vonntae Martin (Springfield, MA/Pope Francis Prep) beat out teammate Robert Rousseau () crossing with a time of 56.32 seconds ahead of Rousseau crossing to finish third with a time of 56.81.
In Boston at the Suffolk Relays, Blake Jandreau (Wallingford, Conn./Lyman Hall) finished third in the 600 meter crossing with a time of 1:25.63.
The 800 meters went all to the Chargers as Justin Ortiz (Bethpage, N.Y./Island Trees), Elijah Espinal () and Jonathan Parmelee (Piscataway, N.J./Saint Joseph) went one, two three on the leaderboards. All within two seconds of each other it was Ortiz getting the win with a time of 2:05.96, ahead of Espinal who crossed in 2:06.59, followed by Parmelee with a time of 2:07.30.
The blue and gold coming off the sweep in the 800 followed that up with a sweep in the mile. Lucas LaBar (Budd Lake, N.J./Mount Olive) led the blue and gold setting the pace and crossing with a time of 4:45.86 to lead the way. Following LaBars pace, Daniel Barberio (/) finished second with a time of 4:49.68 ahead of teammate Zachary Turner who finished with a time of 4:58.76 to round out the podium for the blue and gold.
Turning to the field the Chargers made the sand their home both last year indoor along with during outdoor and they wasted no time making it their home again. For their third sweep of the meet. Zerion Montgomery (/) led the way in the pit jumping 6.83 meters for his best jump that set the mark for the meet. Teammate Rutchlor Luis tried to challenge Montgomery and did early, finishing with a second place jump of 6.63 meters to finish in second. Coming over from the heptathlon, Cole Parker (Severn, MD/Annapolis Area Christian School) beat out his best jump of the heptathlon by .04 meters jumping 6.58 meters finishing him in third to complete the sweep of long jump for New Haven. Zerion kept the momentum going in Boston, where he took home his second win of the weekend with a jump of 6.91 meters. After an opening jump of 6.73, Montgomery got better each jump and on his third jump hit the mark of 6.91 which would hold crowning Montgomery the king of the long jump for the second time in two meets. Montgomery wasn't done there either, taking home a first place finish in the triple jump. After finding his stride it was his fourth jump that launched him up the leaderboard and into first place with a jump of 13.70 meters locking in the third win of the weekend.
Continuing in the pit, Akin Akinwunmi (Scotch Plains, NJ/Scotch Plains-Fanwood) took home a third place finish in the triple jump, jumping 12.78 meters. An opening jump of 12.67 meters moved Akinwunmi quickly into the finals before his opening jump of the finals beating out that first jump sliding him into third. That mark would finish him in third place for the event and another point for the blue and gold.
Going into the relays, the Chargers were in a strong position to win and the Men's Distance Medley team added to the overall success taking home the win in the event. The team of Steven Campbell (Rahway, N.J./Rahway), Blake Jandreau (Wallingford, Conn./Lyman Hall), Justin Ortiz (Bethpage, N.Y./Island Trees) and Lucas LaBar (Budd Lake, N.J./Mount Olive) crossed with a time of 11:22.81 to finish in first setting things up for the 4x400 meter relay team to close out the meet.
Overall the Chargers swept three events finishing with 171 points winning the meet and beating out conference and cross town rival Southern Connecticut State who finished in second place in the meet. The Blue and Gold look to repeat their success of this week when the team travels to two meets next week, first traveling up to Middletown to compete at the Wesleyan Mini Quad Meet on Friday December 9, before the team travels again on Saturday December 10 when they are back in Boston Competing at the Beacon Invitational. All updates, schedules and post meet recaps for the team will be available at Newhavenchargers.com.
