Senior Mike Burgstrom was once again the star for the Yellowjackets at the indoor track and field meet last weekend when the men’s and women’s teams traveled to Cornell University for the Kane Invitational, winning the weight throw for the fifth time this season.
Burgstrom has won the weight throw in every invitational he has participated in with the exception of last week’s St. Valentine’s Relays at Boston University, where he was competing against Division I athletes in addition to opponents who entered independently. At Cornell, he threw the weight 17.77 meters, beating out the runner-up by nearly a full meter. This throw was long enough that it would qualify him for the Division I Eatern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships. In addition to his win in the weight throw, Burgstrom was ninth in the shot put with a throw of 13.51.
Ninth seemed to be a popular placement for UR athletes on Saturday, with three runners also finishing in the No. 9 spot. Freshman Alex Federation was ninth in the 500-meter dash with a time of 1:09.61.
Freshman Andrew Lee also earned the same placement in the 800-meter run, finishing in 1:59.39. The final ninth-place spot went to junior Malik Sams, who crossed the line of the 60-meter high hurdles event in 8.77 seconds and was just 0.04 seconds shy of qualifying for a spot in the finals race of the event.
In field events, junior Travis Buttaccio placed 11th in the long jump with a leap of 6.23 meters, and senior Tyler Stapleton finished 13th in the high jump, clearing 1.68 meters.
Other UR participants in the meet were senior Max Ehrmann, who placed 18th in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.43, and freshman Ryan Fee was 24th in the 400-meter dash, crossing the line in 55.18. The 4×400-meter relay team placed 16th with a time of 3:40.98.
The women’s team also saw its greatest success in the field events when sophomore Melissa Skevington broke an 18-year-old UR indoor triple jump record by hopping, skipping and jumping 11.07. The previous record was 10.98, set by Jessica Lyon ’92 in 1990. Her jump placed her third in the event. In addition to her performance in the triple jump, Skevington placed 12th in the long jump with a distance of 4.92.
In other field events, senior Anjuli Cherukuri was fourth in the pole vault, clearing the bar set at 3.15 meters. Freshman Kristin Fekete was seventh in the event with a launch of 2.90. In the weight throw, sophomore Elise Scheid was another fourth-place finisher by throwing the weight 14.50. Junior Jonelle Redhead was ninth in the same competition with a distance of 14.06.
In the running events, freshman Casey Green had a personal best in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.95 seconds to finish third. She also placed sixth in the 200-meter dash with a time of 26.73.
Sophomore Hilary Haefner placed 10th in the 1,000-meter run, crossing the line in 3:14.75, and junior Grace Tucker finished 13th in the 500-meter dash with a time of 1:37.19.
The Yellowjackets seemed to have trouble placing highly in the Invitational, but a lot of the top performers at the meet were runners from Cornell, which is a Division I school.
This coming weekend, the teams will head back to Cornell for the Deneault Invitational. This is their last regular meet of the season before they head to their championship meets, the first of which is the New York State Collegiate Track Conference Championships, held at St. Lawrence University the following week.
Philbrick is a member of the class of 2009.
