WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J. - The Monmouth track and field teams hosted the Third Annual Monmouth Blue-White Invitational, and competed against Northeast Conference rivals Wagner College and St. Francis University (NY), and future in-state Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference rival Rider University.
The Hawks won the meet by taking nine of the women's events and 10 on the men's competition.
"We do a great volume of work in the fall semester and we don't want to go backward," said Head Coach Joe Compagni. "In some places, we're a little rusty, but in a lot of places we're able to pick up where we left off and we're still pretty solid."
Senior Rachel Watkins took the 400 meter dash with a time of 56.92 seconds, second in the high jump with a 1.78m jump (5.84 feet), and third in the 60 meter hurdles with a time of 8.95 seconds. Junior Mariah Toussaint took first place in the 60 meter dash with a time of 7.73 seconds, first in the 200 meter dash with a time of 24.98 seconds, second in the long jump with a distance of 5.7 meters (18.7 feet), and sixth in the high jump with a height of 1.6 meters (5.25 feet).
Senior Amanda Eller took first place in the 3000 meter run with a time of 10:09 and was also part of the second place relay team that ran a 4:02 in the 4x400 meter. Senior Alison Day took first place in the high jump with a height of 1.7 meters (5.8 feet), sophomore Lauren McDonald won the pole vault with a height of 3.45 meters (11.3 feet), and junior Rachel Alliotta won the shot put with a toss of 14 meters (45.92 feet).
Junior Tilah Young won the weight throw with a toss of 17.23 meters (58.9 feet). She also holds the record for the longest toss in the Multipurpose Activity Center with a distance of 17.57 meters (57.6 feet) set on February 18, 2012.
Said Compagni, "In some areas and some event groups, we saw a lot of progress. In others it was holding ground. The big key is being able to move forward. We're about five weeks away from our conference meet, and the meets get bigger throughout the season and get more important for us.
"We had more of our team competing today. IN December, we didn't have every event covered. Some of our distance runners weren't running, but now we have our full team competing."
On the men's side, freshman Eric Kahana ran the 60 meter dash in 7.05 seconds to win, and also won the 200 meter dash with a time of 22.49 seconds. Sophomore Ben Boyd and freshman John Malespina took first and second place in the 400 meter dash with times of 50.11 and 51.9 seconds, respectively.
Junior Bayaan Oluyadi won the 500 meter dash with a time of 1:05.79 seconds. Senior Ford Palmer, sophomore Andrew Langille and sophomore Khari Bowen took first, second and third place in the 800 meter run with respective times of 1:53.81, 1:54.45, and 1:57.03 seconds. Freshman Geordan Ferguson took the 60 meter hurdles with a time of 8.32 seconds, and was part of the relay team that won first place in the 4x400 meter relay. The team consisted of Ferguson, Oluyadi, Boyd, and junior Joe DiBianca, which completed the relay in 3:19.00.
Junior Ed Kramer took the high jump with a height of 2 meters (6.57 feet), junior Errol Jeffrey won the shot put with a distance of 17.79 meters (58.4 feet) and senior Shane Carle finished second behind Jeffrey with a distance of 16.24 meters (53.29 feet).
In the mixed alumni, community and youth mile, Michael Mooney won with a time of 5:01 on the men's side, and Caitlin Dorgan won with a time of 5:20 for the women.
The Hawks will next compete in the Army 6 Team Meet at West Point, N.Y. on Saturday, January 12 at 11:00 a.m.
