The University of Rhode Island men’s track and field team competed at the UConn Northeast Challenge on Friday and Saturday, as the team continues to prepare for the Atlantic 10 Championship on May 2-3.
Two Rams won their events during the meet, with sixth-year Matt Santy winning the long jump at 7.49 meters and fifth-year Joachim Ennoo taking the triple jump with a 14.74-meter leap. Ennoo finished right behind Santy in the long jump as well, with a 7.47-meter leap.
“I did jump over 740 [centimeters] in almost all six jumps, so it was great to see the consistency of jumping that,” Ennoo said. “Usually, when that happens, I know that a big jump is coming.”
Five other Rams also took second-place finishes alongside Ennoo. First-year Josia Katroli placed second in the high jump, clearing 2.08 meters. Fifth-year Izzy Henriques-Setho finished behind Ennoo in the triple jump as he jumped 14.51 meters. Third-year Nathan Park cleared a height of 4.80 meters in the pole vault for his second-place finish. First-year Lucas Andrade finished the 110-meter hurdles in 13.95 seconds, and the 4×400-meter relay team crossed the finish line in 3:09.94.
Most of the team finished in the top five in their events. Second-year Samuel Gott finished third in the 200-meter with a time of 21.31 seconds, and second-year Matthew Lucas finished third in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 9:18.72.
In the 1,500-meter event, second-years Jeremy Roe and Ben Fatone got third and fourth place, respectively. Roe finished in 3:53.01, and Fatone was less than a second behind with a time of 3:53.94.
“I thought we had a really, really productive two days, especially on the track,” head coach Trent Baltzell said. “I think it showed that we are very much ready to go for the A-10 meet in a couple of weeks.”
In the high jump, right behind Katroli, third-year Rowan McConkey and second-year Cam Miller cleared heights of 2.04 meters and 2.00 meters for third and fourth place, respectively.
Fourth-year Alex DeStefano finished fifth in the pole vault as he cleared a height of 4.55 meters.
Not only did Santy and Ennoo take the top two spots in the long jump, but the top five spots were all claimed by Rams. Third-year Nathan Shultz got third with a leap of 7.07 meters, Henriques-Setho finished fourth with 6.98 meters, and third-year Damian Scouloukas rounded out the top five with a jump of 6.96 meters, two centimeters behind Henriques-Setho.
Second-year Winslow Sightler was the top-placing Ram in the shot put, throwing 16.39 meters, which was good for fourth place. Third-year Theo Puterbaugh finished right behind his teammate with a 16.30-meter throw for a fifth-place finish.
Though the Rams still have two meets left before the Atlantic 10 Championship, Baltzell has his eyes set on reclaiming the title after losing the outdoor title to George Mason University by just 1.5 points last season.
“I don’t know if I’m ever going to get over it,” Baltzell said. “I feel like we had the best team last year, and there were a lot of circumstances that had to all come together at the same time for us to lose that meet, and that’s what happened, so avenging that loss is priority number one.”
The Rams will send their distance medley relay team and a high jumper to Philadelphia for the Penn Relays that take place from Thursday to Saturday, and the team’s throwers on Friday to the CCSU Blue Devil Invite in New Britain, Conn.
