BOSTON, Mass. – The Worcester State men's track & field team continued its 2016-17 indoor track & field campaign with a strong showing at Northeastern's Jay Carisella Invitational which was attended by mostly Division I and II universities on Saturday (Dec. 10).
Despite the Division III status, the Lancers did quite well as they had two individual winners and several more who finished among the top places in the events.
"We stepped it up some from our first meet last week," stated head coach Al Halper. "We were able to improve in a number of areas which will put us in a good place going into our intersession period. The guys have a lot to be excited about and should now have the necessary motivation and excitement to work hard on their own while at home until early January."
Among the top field performances was sophomore Marcus Vieira (Peabody, Mass.) who won the 35lb weight throw with a monster throw of 16.38m to rank him 5th in the DIII NCAA rankings in the event. He also qualified for the All-New England Championships and bettered his seed for DIII New Englands.
Teammate Sam Weeks (Methuen, Mass.), who qualified for both New England meets last week, finished fifth with a throw of 15.81m. Weeks is presently ranked 8th in the DIII NCAA rankings. Sam also placed in the shot put tossing the ball 15.26m for fourth place while freshman Eddie Acuna (Weymouth, Mass.) took fifth place with a toss of 15.04m to qualify him for All Division and DIII New Englands. Weeks and Acuna are ranked 11th and 15th, respectively, in the NCAA national ranking. The Lancers had three in the top ten as Jacob Roumanos (Whitman, Mass.) threw 13.19m for 10th overall.
Freshman Justin Lewis (Lynn, Mass.) won the high jump with a leap of 1.98m / 6'6". He is presently ranked 11th nationally in the NCAA Division III, already qualifying for both Division III and All Division New Englands last week. Lewis also placed ninth in the triple jump.
Elijah Mawejje (Woburn, Mass.) finished eighth in the high jump with a leap of 1.83m and 9th in the long jump with a jump of 6.23m. In the pole vault, sophomore Scott Page (Baldwinville, Mass.) vaulted 4.05m to take 4th place overall, already qualifying for Division III New Englands last week. Markiesh Harmon (Leominster, Mass.) long jumped 6.45m for 6th place in the event. Sophomore Ryan Connolly (Braintree, Mass.) finished in 8th place in the triple jump leaping 12.06m.
In the running events, Marc George (Framingham, Mass.) finished 4th in the 500m with a time of 1:06.87 - just shy of his own school record. Junior Devin Luce (Milford, Mass.) ran a stellar mile with a PR of 4:32.58 for seventh place overall. Jeffrey Davis (Old Lyme, Conn.) ran 2:02.55 for third place overall in the 800m. In the sprints, freshman Jalil Gibson (Lynn, Mass.) ran 7.20 in the 60m for a DIII New England Qualifier. He also ran 23.56 in the 200m. Sophomore Christian Cedullo (Salem, Mass.) was the Lancer's top 400m runner for the day splitting a 52.63 for the event.
Halper commented, "Many of the guys had early season PRs but also gained a great deal of experience in how to race, especially with the quality of the fields. Guys had to keep contact with the faster runners and in some cases were able to get pulled along to faster times. It was a good learning experience particularly for our younger guys. We are very much a young team overall.
Meets like this one and the upperclass leadership on the team will help to bring success to the entire squad over the year," concluded Halper.
The Lancers will now train through the intersession with their next team meet scheduled at Tufts University on Saturday, January 14, 2017.