NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- The Yale men's track & field team opened its season in style on Saturday at the Yale Season Opener in New Haven. Competing in the raucous Coxe Cage atmosphere on their home track, the Bulldogs made the most of the advantage as several athletes laid down early season PRs and impressive performances.
Leading by example was captain
Matt Appel, who came out on top in the first event of the day -- the weight throw -- thanks to a phenomenal 19.75m throw that places him second all time on the Yale indoor lists. Right behind was teammate
Nolan Recker in second with a PR of his own of 18.71m. Behind them, the Bulldogs once again demonstrated their remarkable depth in the throwing events with
Jake Sun,
Chris Ward,
Alex Sundberg,
Nathan Lebowitz and
Chu Anueyiagu all registering strong early season markers. Appel, Ward and Recker doubled back later on in the shot put, going 1-2-3 to round out a successful first meet of the year.
The winning feeling continued in the jumping events, with
Isiah Udofia and
Cristian Pereira leaping 6.75m and 6.51m respectively for first and second in the long jump. In the triple jump, it was
Brian Di Bassinga who took the victory, sailing out to a strong 14.95m effort.
On the track, Pereira ran the race of his Yale career to take the 60m in a lightning-fast 6.93 second clocking. He was pushed all the way by teammates
Kit Colson and
Andrew Fu in second and third, with
Shaun Gold placing sixth, each of them also running PRs of 6.95, 7.02 and 7.28 respectively. Over the 300m,
Aaron Miller dominated the competition as he stormed to a 34.65 PR and near three-second victory over second place. His training partner
Colin Quinn also registered a PR over 500m, running 1:04.38.
The Bulldogs also showed out over the longer track events, with
Thomas Cirrito obliterating his 1000m PR as he cruised to the win in 2:23.58. Yale also saw victory in the 5000m, with
Winslow Atkeson,
Kenan Pala and
Owen Karas securing a 1-2-3 in times of 14:14.85, 14:23.77 and 14:30.72.
Guy Stevens had earlier finished a close second in the mile in 4:18.95 in his first collegiate race.
Yale rounded out the day on a high note with a final 1-2 punch in the 4 x 400m, with the winning team dipping under 3:20 with an impressive time of 3:19.69.
The focus now moves back to training over the coming weeks before Yale once again plays host on Jan 20, against Columbia and Dartmouth.
Full results from today's action can be found
here.
