NEW YORK, N.Y.- Monmouth's track and field sent a partial team to the Fordham Collegiate Opener at the 168th Street Armory in New York on Friday. With less than half the team in action, the Hawks still put up some impressive results.

Leading the way was junior Nikki Zwartjes (Burlington, N.J./Burlington), who broke her own school record for the second time in two meets this indoor season. Zwartjes cleared 10'11.75” (3.35 meters) to win the event and break the mark of 10'10” she set last month at Princeton.
 
Also picking up a win for the Monmouth women was senior Malia Lyles (Collingswood, N.J./Cherokee). After sitting off the pace in fifth place for the first half of the race, Lyles blasted to the front and made up a gap of close to 10 seconds on the early leader. Lyles winning time of 10:30.11 puts her among the top five performers in school history. Not far behind her in the 3000m were a pair of freshmen, as Rachel Ruggiano (Barnaget, N.J./Southern Regional) ran 10:51.22 to finish fourth and Lauar Embrey (West Long Branch, N.J./Shore Regional) ran 11:04 for 10th.

 On the men's side, multi-eventer Jude Rene picked up a second place finish in the men's high jump, clearing 6'3.25”. The men's 4x800 team of Martin Suarez (Burlington, N.J./Burlington), Pete Forgach (Long Branch, N.J./Red Bank Catholic), Craig Segal (Holmel, N.J./Holmdel) and Ryan Madrid (Clifton, N.J./Paramas Catholic) also picked up a second-place finish.

 “We had some people in their normal events, but our relay teams and many other individual events had people competing in different places to get some work in,” said head coach Joe Compagni. “Our men's 4x800 team for instance was three long distance guys who wouldn't normally be in there. They ran tough to keep the race close, and then Ryan Madrid ran a strong anchor leg to get them into second place.”

 Madrid, a sophomore, also finished 5th in the 1000 in 2:35.32, while Segal was 5th in the mile in 4:20.55. Another fifth-place came from senior Dan Tamburini (West Long Branch, N.J./Ocean City), who cleared 13'5.25” in the pole vault.
 
Other highlights for the men were a seventh place finish from Kyle Adriance (Montrose, Pa./Montrose) in the high jump, and eighth place finishes from Suarez in the mile, Alex Bowers in the long jump, Matt Caporaso (Matawan, N.J./Old Bridge) in the 3000m, Shawn Sabo (Oakland, N.J./Indian Hills) in the weight throw and Bryan Fill (Hasbrook Heights, N.J./Hasbrook) in the shot put.

On the women's side, Latasha Leake (Wrightstown, N.J./N. Burlington) finished third in the high jump with a 5'3” clearance, and Brittany Gibbs (Matawan, N.J./Old Bridge) came within an inch of the freshman record in the triple jump at 36'9” to finish fourth. Illiana Blackshear finished fifth in the 500m in 1:18 her first race of the year and also anchored the women's 4x800 team (along with Corinne LaChac (Sparta, N.J./Sparta), Latasha Dickson (Aberdeen, N.J./Matawan) and Jessica Jones(Wilkes-Barre, Pa./Dallas)) to a fifth place finish. Ashley Huffman (S. Setauket, N.J./Ward Melville) finished sixth in the high jump and narrowly missed making the finals in the shot put, and Laura Myers (Clifton, N.J./Clifton) finished fifth in the women's pole vault.
 
“It was great to get some of our team back in action after the break and we look forward to having a bigger group compete next weekend,” Compagni said.

The Hawks will be in action again on Jan. 12-13, with a split squad at two meets. Half the team will be in action at the NYC Gotham Cup back on Friday at the 168th Street Armory in a meet that will feature the University of Texas and many of the top teams in the East. The other half will travel to the Penn State Relays on Saturday.