For the second-straight season, the UConn Huskies have brought the IC4A Championship trophy home to Storrs. The UConn men’s track & field team finished on top of the 39-team field to claim the program’s fourth IC4A title on Sunday afternoon at the Boston University Rack & Tennis Center.
The IC4A Track & Field Championship is an annual men’s competition held at different colleges every year.
“Our guys really, really competed well,” says head coach Greg Roy. “We had some many crazy, great things happen today, and so many young kids breaking through. From a developmental standpoint, this was a great day, so many guys coming through.”
The Huskies finished with 108 total points over 20 scored events, beating out Rutgers in second place with 93 points, Monmouth in third with 49.50, and Liberty in fourth with 49 points.
“Look at that group of freshmen in the hurdles, and Ventura in the 400, incredible performance,” Roy says. “Across the board, no one would let go. Rutgers kept pushing and we would not quit, and we really just put it away in those relays. A lot of tired legs in those relays, but we really put it away. Just a great way to end the season.”
UConn freshman Wellington Ventura (Cresskill, New Jersey) had a record-breaking Sunday, grabbing a second place finish in the 400 meters while setting a new UConn school record. Ventura destroyed his previous personal best with a blazing time of 46.47 seconds to set a new school mark. He breaks the previous indoor record of 46.69 seconds set by Joe Mendel back in 2002.
The Huskies put the meet away during the relays led by the 4 x 800 team of sophomore Brian Camillieri (Pearl River, New York), freshman Joseph Pearl (Manchester, Connecticut), sophomore Tyler Gleen (Shelton, Connecticut) and senior Kyle Barber (Fayetteville, New York), who took second place with a time of 7:28.40.
The UConn distance medley relay team of sophomore Joshua Bedard (Tolland, Connecticut), freshman Gregory Clark(Quaker Hill, Connecticut), senior PJ Garmon (Billerica, Massachusetts), and junior Ian Mickool (Fairfield, Connecticut) took third place running in a time of 9:55.47. The 4 x 400 relay team finished off the day with a third place finish as well, with the lineup of freshman Adam Kriss (Secaucus, New Jersey), sophomore Colt Nichols (Portsmouth, Rhode Island), freshman Noah Woodman (Hampsted, New Hampshire), and Ventura, posting the fastest team by a group of Huskies this season at 3:12.77.
In the 60 meter hurdles, the rookie duo of Xavier Smith (West Windsor, New Jersey) and Oluwatomide Alao (Jamaica, New York) posted season-best times, finishing third and fourth, respectively. Smith was third, with a time of 8.04 seconds, and Alao was right on his heels at 8.05 seconds. Fellow rookie Konstantin Rust was sixth, with a clocking of 8.15 seconds.
Nichols set a new personal best in the 500 meters, beating his previous best time by nearly two seconds. He was second in the event, with a time of 1:02.64. Classmate Omar Gebril (North Haven, Connecticut) also set a new personal best mark of 1:04.25, earning a seventh place finish.
In the pole vault, senior Ian Bergere (Madison, Connecticut) set a new personal best, while finishing fourth overall. Bergere cleared the bar at 5.10 meters (16′ 8.75″), topping his previous best set back at the first meet this winter, the Beantown Challenge. Senior Malik Snead (Trenton, New Jersey) was a third place finisher in the triple jump final, posting a leap of 15.42 meters (50′ 7.25″); and in the shot put, sophomore Todd Stueber (Toms River, New Jersey) was sixth, with a toss of 16.89 meters (55′ 5.00″).
Also scoring for the Huskies was Gleen in the 800 meters, who finished fifth in 1:52.50, and Garmon, who took fourth in the 1,000 meters, just missing a new personal best time with a 2:25.20 clocking. Fellow senior Michael McGonnigle (New Fairfield, Connecticut) was seventh in the 3,000 meters, with a time of 8:14.80. In the 60 meter dash, freshman Josiah Thompson (Jamaica, New York) took third in 6.88 seconds, and classmate Myles Calhoun (Henrietta, New York) was fifth, in 6.94 seconds.
On Saturday, a pair of Huskies took home individual titles. Sophomore Daniel Claxton (Nesconset, New York) took home his first career IC4A title in the high jump on Saturday, winning with a height of 2.09 meters (6′ 10.25″). In the heptathlon, classmate Benjamin Grosse (Wayzata, Minnesota) had a career-best weekend, and took home the championship. Grosse put up a total of 5,040 points, a new personal best point total and the fourth time this season he has set a new career-high.
The Huskies will pick up again with the start of the 2019 outdoor season on March 22 at the UNF Spring Invitational in Jacksonville, Florida.
