The University of Rhode Island men’s track and field team traveled to Brown University to participate in the Brown Invitational on Saturday, in the team’s final competition before the Atlantic 10 Championship.
URI had athletes competing in six events, highlighted by second-year Cam Miller in the high jump, where he cleared a personal best of 2.05 meters to win the event. Second-year Miles Lipka also competed, clearing 1.90 meters to finish in third place.
The Rams also took home all three top spots in the pole vault, led by first-year Carson Dean with a vault of 4.75 meters to place first. Third-year Nathan Park and first-year Tyler Grabinski were right behind Dean with 4.60 meters to place second and third, respectively, in the event.
Second-year Rece Englehart soared 13.57 meters in the triple jump event to claim another first-place spot for Rhode Island.
The sophomores kept it going with second-year Owen Vieira placing second in the 60-meter hurdles with a personal best time of 8.38 seconds, just 0.16 seconds behind first place.
Third-year thrower CJ McDermott led the Rams with a throw of 15.28 meters in the shot put, enough for fifth-place. Fourth-year Rhode Island native Nate Field also added a throw of 15.92 meters in the weight throw to corral eighth-place.
“We had some really nice performances at Brown,” Rhode Island Head Coach Trent Baltzell said. “We only had 11 total athletes competing, and of those 11, many of them had personal bests, and we were really thrilled with that.”
Many of the athletes on the team didn’t participate in the invitational over the weekend, which was part of the plan with the conference championships coming soon.
“Those who we figured would compete at A-10s had the weekend off to train through and rest and recover,” Baltzell said. “A couple of other guys were just trying to put up a final result on paper to make the A-10 team. It’s a funny little meet every year that has multiple purposes.”
Having such a successful program so far this season and also winning the indoor conference championship for the past five seasons, Baltzell always has high expectations going into the championship.
“We’ve done everything we can so far to have confidence that we can go in there and compete at our best and contend for a title and hopefully bring the trophy back,” Baltzell said. “I think we’re going to go down to Virginia with 32 very ready, and very hungry athletes.”
Last year, the team took home gold in five different events and totaled a score of 178.5 points, 57 points more than second-place George Mason University with 121.5. Baltzell was also awarded coach of the year honors for the third year in a row.
The Rams will make the trip down to Virginia Beach, Va., to compete in the Atlantic 10 Championship on Saturday and Sunday.
