A group of UMass Lowell men’s and women’s indoor track and field athletes participated in the first day of the NEICAA Indoor Track and Field Championships at Reggie Lewis Track Center in Boston on Friday.
In the men’s weight throw, freshmen Reznor Rokicki and Kenneth Kalvinek finished 17th and 19th respectively, with marks of 14.81 meters and 14.54 meters. Freshman Kevin Vigneault placed 21st with a throw of 13.98 meters. In the long jump, freshman Rere Edokpolo was the only River Hawk competitor, finishing 17th with a leap of 6.26 meters.
On the track, freshman Raymond Dafe led the team in the 500-meter preliminaries by placing seventh out of nineteen runners with a time of 1:06.09, qualifying for finals. Freshman Abdul Jalloh took 15th place with a time of 1:07.02. In the 800-meter preliminaries, sophomore Jamie Lano narrowly missed qualifying for finals by finishing ninth in 1:55.10; sophomore Tyler Rothrock came in 14th at 1:59.32.
Sophomore Michael Gyimah qualified for finals in the men’s 200-meter dash preliminaries by placing fifth with a time of 22.22 seconds. Sophomore Jack Courtney competed alone for UMass Lowell in the men’s 5,000-meter run and achieved fifth place out of twenty-one runners with a personal-best time of 14:48.42.
For the women’s pentathlon, freshman Nyrah Joseph finished third overall with a total score of 3,141 points while graduate student Fleur Balogh competed in three events. Joseph took second place in the 60-meter hurdles (9.14 seconds) as Balogh followed closely behind in third (9.30). Balogh tied for first place in high jump by clearing 1.56 meters; Joseph placed fifth at that event (1.50 meters). Balogh won shot put (11.78 meters), while Joseph finished third (10.02 meters). In long jump, Joseph reached third place again with a mark of 5.12 meters before finishing sixth in the final event—the pentathlon’s concluding race—at two minutes and forty-five seconds.
The men completed four events on day one of their heptathlon competition; senior Derek Munroe ended second overall after scoring a total of 2,776 points while sophomore Camren Allain stood fifth at day’s end with a score of 2,599 points; Brandon Riley competed in three events as well.
Riley won both his opening events—the sixty-meter dash (6.99 seconds) and long jump (6.83 meters)—while Munroe placed fourth and seventh respectively; Allain ranked seventh then twelfth across those same contests.
Munroe secured victory during shot put by reaching fourteen point zero four meters as Riley finished third (12.28m) and Allain seventh (10.79m). The last event for day one was high jump where Allain claimed first by clearing one point ninety-six meters; Munroe finished seventh at one point eighty-one meters.
UMass Lowell athletes are scheduled to return for day two tomorrow at Reggie Lewis Track Center.
