Men's track looks ahead

Even though their success could not be measured against their opponents this week as the Hamilton Invitational was a non-scored meet, the men’s track and field team put together a stellar performance once again, as they continued their preparation for the postseason meets coming up in the next few weeks in what Coach John Izzo called “a very good meet.”He said of the team as a whole, “there were good performances up and down the line. We performed really well whether or not we won the event – it was a top notch performance.”Sophomore Andrew Wunder stole the show early on in the throwing events, as he placed third in each of the first three events of the day. He marked 44.10 meters in the hammer throw, which he followed up with a mark of 13.58 meters in the shot put and 39.89 meters in the discus throw. The rest of the team was up for the challenge as well. In the long jump, sophomore Greg Dusek marked 5.99 meters to place second. Senior Giancarlo Rondash was first overall in the pole vault, marking 4.44 meters. In the high jump, Jacob Budny finished fifth at 1.77 meters.The team got another first place finish in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. This time, it came from Terrence Cordner, who ran 9:58.23, defeating the second place runner from SUNY Geneseo by more than eight seconds and finishing first overall for the first time in his college career.The 1,000-meter relay team continued its weekly domination when it ran 42.91 seconds, finishing first. Senior Brian Strandberg ran 50.27 seconds to finish second. He was followed closely by Dusek, who ran 50.29 seconds to add a third place finish to his second place in the long jump. With a time of 50.44 seconds, senior Chris Clark added a fourth place finish in the 400. Freshman Matt Tierney’s success in the 100-meter dash continued, as he ran 11.35 seconds to finish in a tie for fifth.Freshman Chris Nolan ran 1:57.73 in the 800-meter dash, finishing second overall. Jacob Budny added a third place finish in the 400-meter hurdles to his fifth place high jump result. Finishing close behind his time of 57.38 seconds, junior Mike Hakiel was sixth in the 400 hurdles, with a time of 58.25 seconds.The 200-meter dash was another successful event for UR. With a time of 22.14 seconds, Tierney finished first overall. Fellow freshman Tommy Hainsworth was not far behind, as he ran a 22.25 to finish third. Greg Dusek’s strong day continued, as he ran 22.53, finishing sixth.In the 5,000-meter run, senior David Messenheimer ran 16:25.62, finishing fifth. The final event of the day was the 1,600-meter relay, which the men ran in 3:21.88, finishing first and clinching a relay event sweep.Izzo called the weather on Saturday “the first really nice day we’ve had this season.” He also stressed the need for the good weather to continue, however, saying that the team is “in desperate need of another nice weekend.” This weekend the Yellowjackets will head to Rochester Institute of Technology where they look to continue to prepare for the postseason meets that are just a few weeks away.Just as Izzo said that the Hamilton meet was aimed at “positioning all of our people to have options for the State meet,” this coming weekend the goals will be similar.Swidler can be reached at dwider@campustimes.org.