The University of Rhode Island men’s track and field team captured its fifth Atlantic 10 Outdoor Championship in six years on Sunday, as the team scored its most points at the meet in program history and the third-most in A-10 history.
Last year, Rhody finished just 1.5 points behind George Mason University, breaking up a streak of nine straight Atlantic 10 titles across the indoor and outdoor track and field seasons.
“I don’t know if I’m ever going to get over it, to be honest,” head coach Trent 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.”
Sixth-year Matt Santy was named the meet’s Most Outstanding Field Performer after winning gold medals in the long jump and high jump. He also set personal bests in the triple jump and javelin throw, finishing sixth and seventh in the events, respectively.
“I don’t think I would’ve had it any other way, ending my Atlantic 10 career on such a high note,” Santy said. “I didn’t want to leave anything up to chance. I wanted to put it all out there, give everything I had and try to score as many points for the team as possible.”
Santy’s 7.70-meter long jump set a new meet record by 0.01 meters. Temple University’s Tim Boeni held the previous record since the 2010 Atlantic 10 Outdoor Championship. This was Santy’s first gold medal in the long jump at the outdoor championship.
Rhode Island would sweep the podium in the event, with fifth-year Izzy Henriques-Setho jumping 7.55 meters for second place and fifth-year Joachim Ennoo jumping 7.49 meters to finish third. Third-year Nate Shultz also earned points for URI with a fifth-place finish of 7.36 meters. The three Rams joined Santy, setting new personal bests with their jumps.
Santy took the high jump, clearing 2.12 meters. Second-year Cam Miller got a bronze medal, clearing a personal-best 2.06 meters.
After bronze in the long jump, Ennoo secured his own gold medal with a jump of 15.70 meters in the triple jump. Ennoo’s performance not only set a new school record but also beat the previous meet record by 0.06 meters. Henriques-Setho and Santy set personal bests in the event as well, with jumps of 15.08 and 14.76 meters, respectively.
First-year Arnaud Sioho continued the trend of Rams setting personal bests with a jump of 14.61 meters for seventh place, right behind Henriques-Setho and Santy.
The Rams’ dominance continued on the track as they swept the 4×100-meter, 4×400-meter and 4×800-meter relays.
The 4×100-meter team of third-year Alex Arbogast, second-year Samuel Gott, second-year Cam Rose and first-year Lucas Andrade set a new program-record time of 40.34, 0.01 seconds off from tying the meet record set by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Gott, Rose, Andrade and second-year Elias Sposato set another program record, this time in the 4×400-meter with a gold medal-winning time of 3:09.67.
Andrade stepped up to the top of the podium for his first individual title with a personal-best time of 13.88 seconds in the 110-meter hurdles.
Fourth-year Antonio Capalbo got URI’s eighth gold medal of the meet in the 800-meter, finishing in 1:53.68.
Rhody’s ninth and final gold medal came from third-year Theo Puterbaugh with a throw of 16.94 meters in the shot put. Second-year Winslow Sightler joined Puterbaugh on the podium with a throw of 16.65 meters, good enough for second place.
“We were fortunate that not a lot of things went against us this year,” Baltzell said. “A lot of things went right, and I’m just trying to be grateful for that because it doesn’t typically happen that way. Truly, this was almost as hard as we could possibly hit.”
Third-year Nick Martin set a new program record in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 8:53.68, earning him a silver medal.
The Rams finished with 250.5 points for the meet, beating their projected total by almost 40 points for the program’s 17th outdoor title. The team’s performance earned Baltzell his fourth Outdoor Coach of the Year award.
“We really had our best meet of the year,” Baltzell said. “Just really proud of what our guys accomplished. They went in there and acted like champions from the very first event.”
The Rams will have to quickly regroup as they head to Easton, Mass., on Friday to compete in the New England Championship. Rhode Island finished second of 30 teams last season, trailing only the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
