Men win 25th championship, women finish fourth
Trinity Smith competes in the 60 meter hurdles PHOTO CREDIT: gorhody.com
The University of Rhode Island men’s and women’s track and field teams made lots of noise on Thursday and Friday, competing at The TRACK at New Balance in Boston for the New England Championships.
The men’s team took home their 25th New England Championship, and the women’s team finished fourth with three event champions. At the conclusion of the meet, the men’s team racked up six event champions.
The first came from third-year Derek Chalmers, third-year Liam Creeley, fourth-year Collin Ochs, and second-year Jarrett Young, who made up the 4×400 relay team that finished with a time of 3:17.08.
Four more of the championships were accomplished by second-year John Santos in the high jump (6’8.75”), fourth-year Ben Fleischer in the 5000 meter (14:47.30), graduate student Johnathan Buchanan in the weight throw event (67’3”) and fifth-year Jack Reichenbach finishing with a 23’7.5” leap in the long jump.
Last but not least, graduate student and team captain Stephen Cirella took home the crown with a personal best score of 5,150 points in the heptathlon.
“It’s always such an amazing feeling to get a personal best,” Cirella said. “[The heptathlon] is a really difficult event to put together in an entire meet. You have seven events, and over the course of the seven events, you can PR [personal record] in one and maybe not do so well in the next one, but you always have to keep in mind that there’s another event that follows.”
The teams have prepared for months leading up to the championship, and it’s no longer about learning technique according to Cirella. The teams are trying to nail down the fine details of the event they are participating in.
“At this point in the season it’s not about volume training anymore, it’s more about honing your craft, honing your skills,” said Cirella. “Now we’re focusing on quality over quantity.”
Cirella has improved vastly over the course of his career as a Ram. Now as a leader for the team, he shows great maturity.
He admits to getting the nerves that naturally comes to athletes during meets, but he never lets the people he’s racing against affect his mentality. Moving forward, he plans on focusing his energy on himself.
“My goal as an athlete always used to be to win, and I think that’s always an expectation as athletes, but I’ve learned through my many years of competing is that you really can’t control how the person next to you performs,” Cirella said. “ So my goal moving into these championship meets is to be the best athlete I can be.”
As for the Women’s team, they garnered some success of their own.
The three event champions included the 4×800 relay team of fourth-year Hannah Birdsall (2:16.98), fourth-year Becca Durham (2:19.41), fourth year Hanna O’Connor (2:19.30) and first-year Lily Saul (2:15.56) for a total time of 9:11.24. Durham again in the 1000 meter race with a personal best time of 2:51.41 and Trinity Smith finishing with a time of 8.64 in the 60 meter hurdles.
The team came in well-prepared led by Coach Laurie Feit-Melnick. She especially put emphasis on this meet knowing the greater importance of it compared to the previous meets in the season.
“We were excited because it was an early championship,” Feit-Melnick said. “It’s a scored meet, and a great opportunity to do well across the board.”
That is exactly what they did. Other than the Rams who took home their event championship, there were five other top three finishers in their respective events.
Along with her top finish in the 4×800 relay, O’Connor recorded her personal best for the 800 meter race with a time of 2:14.91 that was good enough for second place, and Saul clocked in with a time of 1:15.12 in the 500 meter. She finished in third place in the event.
The other three events include fourth-year Xiana Twombly who finished third in the long jump (18’1 3/4”), third-year Meghan Wood who came in third place with a 42’4 ¾” throw in shot put and the 4×400 team made up of third-year Sydney Federico, fourth year Sanaiya Watts, Xiana Twombly, and graduate student Trinity Smith (3:52.17).
While Coach Feit-Melnick is focused on the next meet at the Boston University Valentine Classic and the URI Coaches Invitational coming up this weekend, she said that she is super excited for the Atlantic-10 Championship.
“It’s all about the team and there’s no insignificant point,” Feit-Melnick said. “We’re looking forward to hosting and being in front of the home crowd. If they give 100% we can’t ask for more.”
The A-10 Championship will take place on February 25th and 26th in Mackal Field House.