Men's Track and Field | 12/2/2022 11:26:00 PM

HOUGHTON, N.Y. – The St. John Fisher University men's and women's track & field teams began their season on Friday, Dec. 2 in the Houghton University December Classic. Multiple outstanding efforts helped propel the Cardinals past their competition in multiple events.
 
On the track, the day started with the women's 5000m, with Lauren Almy securing a sixth place finish with a time of 20:14.08. The women's 60m saw many outstanding performances, with Ciarra Franz finishing third in a time of 8.048 and T'Aliyah Perkins finishing fifth in a time of 8.14. The men's 60m unseeded race had the Cardinals first winner of the day, with Brock Young winning with a time of 7.23. Angelea Collins led the Cardinals in the women's 800m, securing fourth place with a time of 2:36.32. In the women's 300m, Samantha Shea finished second overall, with a time of 42.05. Later on, Young secured his second win of the day, winning the men's 200m in a time of 23.29. The women's 4x400m team, consisting of Grace Wright, Emma Wright, Brenda Le, and Samantha Shea, had a great performance, claiming second overall with a time of 4:12.59.
 
The Cardinals performed just as well on the field. Matthew Stasiw claimed first in the men's long jump, winning with a jump of 7.06 meters. On the women's side, Veronica Duell claimed third with a leap of 5.53 and Michaela Kurbs followed with a jump of 5.48. In the shot put, Lyndsay O'Brien impressed for the women, claiming third with her first toss of 11.04. In the men's high jump, Sean Cochrane cleared a height of 1.91 in his first attempt to take home second place, while teammate Bryant DePaul used a second attempt at the same height to finish in third.

It is the first time in Empire 8 Conference history that there are performance standards that must be met in order to be eligible to compete at E8 Championships. The first step is to make the qualifying time and then an athlete must be one of the top 16 athletes that coaches declare when entries are made for the Conference Championship.

In todays meet, the men had 18 E8 qualifying performances, while the women had 19. 
 
Stasiw in the long jump, Duell and Kurbs in the long jump and Franz in the 60m dash, all hit the standard for All Atlantic Regionals. Stasiw's jump of 7.06m is just a few centimeters away from what qualified for the National Championship last year. Sean Cochrane and freshman Bryant DePaull qualified for Regionals in the high jump. Perkins 8.14 in the 60m is just 3 hundredths of a second away from a Regional Qualifying time.
  
"Overall, a pretty solid meet for the first one of the season," said head coach Mike Henchen.  

"We have a lot of work left to do but definitely off to a great start," he added.
 
Up next for the Cardinals will be the Nazareth College Early Season Invite on Friday, Dec. 9^th. The meet will be hosted by Nazareth College.
 
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