The University of Rhode Island men’s track and field team traveled to Boston University to take part in the John Thomas Terrier Classic on Saturday, the second of four straight weekend events at BU.
URI had just three runners competing in the classic: second-year Maddox Jordan, fourth-year Antonio Capalbo and third-year Nick Martin. Martin finished the 3000-meter in a university-record time of 7:57.63, becoming the first individual at Rhode Island to run a sub-eight-minute race in the event.
Before taking part in the event this weekend, Martin felt prepared to take the top spot in the Rhody record book this season.
“Going into the race, the record was obviously on my mind, and I knew I could do it,” Martin said. “I was pretty close last year, but I’m a lot more fit now than I was then, so I’m just super happy that I was able to pull it off.”
With the previous record standing at a time of 8:00.19 from Rhody alum Ben Fleischer ’23 ’24, Martin not only broke the record, but broke it by a margin of almost three seconds.
Rhode Island Head Coach Trent Baltzell felt differently compared to Martin going into the event.
“It’s hard to necessarily expect school records to happen,” Baltzell said. “Usually they happen on special days, but since Nick came off of a really strong cross country season as one of our top two runners in every race this year, he got this opportunity and he took advantage of it.”
Along with Martin’s record-breaking accomplishment, Jordan and Capalbo both ran in the mile. Jordan placed 25th with the fifth-best indoor mile time in school history at 4:05.32, while Capalbo placed 72nd with a time of 4:12.06.
Going into the weekend, Baltzell had one expectation for both Jordan and Capalbo, but they had contrasting results.
“Just to run strong races,” Baltzell said. “This was the next step for [Jordan] to get back on track and get some good competition and maybe run a new personal record, which he did. [Capalbo] had a bit of an off day, as we’re still trying to find the proper distance for him as someone who came off an 800-meter title last outdoor season.”
With the IC4A Championship less than a week away, Baltzell feels his team is ready to compete.
“For the most part, the team had the weekend off, but it was by design to try to rest up and make sure that we get to IC4As feeling really good,” Baltzell said. “It’s a different type of event for us, but I think we’re prepared and we have the troops really ready to go for it.”
The Rams will travel back to Boston to compete in the IC4A Championship this upcoming weekend, on Saturday and Sunday.
