STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – The Saint Joseph's men's track and field team recorded seven IC4A performances, three invitational appearances, and one individual win at the Penn State National Invitational this weekend. Hosted by Penn State University, the meet was held at the Horace Ashenfelter III Indoor Track from Friday, January 31 through Saturday, February 1.
Junior Matthew McGarvey won the 1000m out of 12 total competitors in an IC4A-qualifying 2:28.36. The distance standout edged out Bucknell's Chris Oesterlin by over a second (2:29.82) for the win. With the performance, McGarvey improves upon his previous PR in the event by nearly three seconds and has now qualified for two individual and four overall IC4A events.
Three Hawks represented Saint Joseph's in the invitational section of the program, resulting in two IC4A qualifications. Senior Griff Roberts took home the silver in the 500m in a personal-record 1:04.50. Having already qualified for IC4As this season, Roberts' new PR will now stand as his 500m seed time for the 2013-14 IC4A Championships. Senior Aaron Leskow ran the 3k in a personal-record 8:18.16 to qualify for his third event of the season. The senior captain took more than eight seconds off of his previous PR in the event to cross the finish line in 15th. Junior Logan Mohn represented the Hawks with an 18th-place finish in the mile (4:34.13).
A quartet of rookies earned SJU's only top-ten finish on Friday as the DMR of freshmen Eddison Gulama, Kevin Barry, Jack Magee, and John Mascioli took sixth to meet the IC4A standard in 10:17.82. Gulama now qualifies in both the DMR and 4x8 while Barry, Magee, and Mascioli have each now each qualified for their first respective IC4A events.
Mascioli and Magee also ran the second and third legs of the third-place 4x8 (7:53.57), led by junior Steve Butenewicz and anchored by senior Tom O'Kane. Additionally, Roberts and McGarvey ran the second and anchor legs of the IC4A-qualifying 4x4 (3:17.70) alongside sophomore Chris Banks and senior Peter Larmann.
Sophomore Alec Peabody also met his first IC4A qualification of the season after crossing the finish line of the 200m in a PR 22.15, good for 11th place. Peabody also posted a season-best mark in the long jump (6.78m) for 20th.
Saint Joseph's saw a pair of top-ten performances in the 3k as sophomore Quinn Davis (8:27.60, PR) and freshman Dan Savage (8:34.34) posted fifth- and sixth-place finishes, respectively. Destroying his previous PR in the event by over 20 seconds, Davis just missed IC4A qualification by .60 seconds while Savage improved upon his own PR by 12 seconds.
The Hawks saw three top-20 performances out of their sprint section, led by Larmann's seventh-place 500m effort (1:06.09). Butenewicz led SJU with an 18th-place finish in the 800m (1:57.26) and Banks rounded out the top 20 of the 400m (50.22). Senior Jon Eisemann led the Hawks in the short sprints as the captain tied for 26th in 7.08.
The Hawks also saw three top-20 performances out of their middle distance section. O'Kane represented the Hawks with a 14th-place finish in the mile (4:21.31) on Saturday while senior Michael Rankin and freshman Jimmy Daniels became the first to compete in the 5k for the Hawks this indoor season. Daniels took 18th (15:12.93) in his first collegiate indoor 5k and Rankin followed up with a 19th-place finish (15:27.27) on Friday.
The Hawks will return to action next weekend at the Geigengack Invitational. Hosted by Yale University, the meet will be held at Coxe Cage in New Haven, Conn. from Friday, February 7 to Saturday, February 8.
