The University of Rhode Island’s men’s track and field team split up for two meets, as runners took a trip to North Carolina State University to compete at the Raleigh Relays, while field athletes competed at the Jaylin Rainford Invitational at Bryant University over the weekend.
URI had ten total student-athletes competing this weekend, five in each meet.
On Friday at Bryant, the Rams got off to a quick start in the shot put, with a throw of 16.78 meters from third-year Theo Puterbaugh to win the event. Two more Rams filled in the podium, with second-year Winslow Sightler marking a throw of 16.61 meters for second place and a 14.58-meter throw from third-year CJ McDermott, good for third place.
Sightler continued his day in the discus, as he recorded a third-place finish with a throw of 46.09 meters. Second-year Alex Fitzsimmons also competed in the event and marked 45.14 meters, good for fifth place.
In the Raleigh Relays, URI competed in four total events, with the 1,500-meter event the only one in which multiple Rams competed.
Second-year Maddox Jordan posted Rhode Island’s best time with a finish of 3:49.52 for 109th place. Fourth-year Antonio Capalbo was right behind him in 111th place with a time of 3:49.90.
Third-year Nick Martin marked a new outdoor program record in the 5,000-meter, finishing with a time of 14:04.47 for 34th place. Third-year Alex Arbogast was the only Rams who took part in the 100-meter and finished 44th with a time of 10.666 seconds.
The final race of the day was the 400-meter, in which first-year Elias Sposato finished with an Atlantic 10 Conference second-best time of 47.27 seconds, enough to earn him Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week.
After a less-than-ideal start to his collegiate career as a URI track athlete, Sposato has made the comeback that came as no surprise to his coaches.
“He came off of an ACL repair back in the fall of 2024, so last year, he was on the mend for the most part,” Rhode Island Head Coach Trent Baltzell said. “He raced a little bit at the very end of outdoors and was still struggling a bit with injury, but then right at the tail end, he just took off.”
Although this has been the biggest moment of his URI career thus far, Baltzell believes he has a lot more gas left in the tank.
“This is only the tip of the iceberg for Elias,” Baltzell said. “He definitely deserved the award, but I think he’s got a lot of ability, and he really wants it. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see him do much bigger things over the coming weeks.”
With URI’s last six meets being outside of their home turf in Kingston, Baltzell believes traveling all across the East Coast is for one reason and one reason only.
“If we’re going that far, it’s for a purpose,” Baltzell said. “It’s to compete against high-quality competition. The Raleigh Relays might be the biggest track meet on the East Coast, so you’re going to have some super-fast guys out there. So for us to go down there and mix it up with them is always a lot of fun.”
The Rams will be back at Bryant for the Ocean State Cup in Smithfield on Saturday.
