Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell University
Patriot League Championships
Bucknell Women First, Men Fourth after Day One at Patriot League Meet
2/21/2004 7:00:00 AM | Women's Track and Field
Feb. 21, 2004
LEWISBURG, Pa. - The Bucknell women's indoor track and field team is just one day of competition from taking its third straight Patriot League championship, but the men must come from behind on Sunday in order to pass Navy and unseat 10-time defending champion Army.
The Bison women closed Saturday with six points in a third-place 4x800 relay as they completed the 3200-meter run in 9:10.58, the 10th-best time in Bucknell history, behind Navy and American. That followed the 5,000-meter run, where Katie Pfeifer and Alison Cole were scorers for the Bison. Pfeifer finished fourth in 17:56.52, and Cole sixth in 18:12.50. Bucknell also had two scorers in the high jump, with Sarah Groman making a leap of 5'3", good for second place, and Tolu Fayanjuola jumping a fourth-place 5'1".
Fayanjuola helped Bucknell's women got out to a 31-26 lead over second-place Lehigh by winning the long jump with a leap of 18'8 ?", the third-best all-time leap in Bucknell history. In the weight throw, Bucknell claimed the third through sixth spots as Maria Garcia's record of 54' ?" established last week was broken by teammate Marjorie Grap, who threw 54'4 ?". Garcia was right behind with a toss of 53'3 ?", followed by Laura Schaffer, who threw a Bucknell all-time seventh-best 50'3 ?". In sixth was Angie McFarland, who notched the eighth-best throw in Bucknell history of 50' ?". With the toss, Grap joins Garcia as ECAC qualifiers in the weight throw, and Fayanjuola earned her ECAC spot in the long jump, breaking the standard by just ?".
Through the first day of competition, Bucknell leads Lehigh 53-39, with Colgate (24), Navy (23), Army (19), Lafayette (12), American (eight) and Holy Cross (eight) trailing.
Bucknell's men earned their first six points with Mike Mellas' third-place finish in the heptathlon. Mellas began the day in fourth, but moved up on the strength of his third place finish in the 60-meter hurdles in 8.81 seconds and his 2:48.82 first-place finish in the 1000 meters two events later. He edged out Lehigh's Vaclav Malek in that event by less than a second. Malek went on to claim second in the heptathlon with 4,836 points, ahead of Mellas' 4,651 and behind Army's Rodney Manzo, who won with 4,959 points.
Noel Powell, Greg Costello, and Jeff Arek were Bucknell's other individual men's scorers. Powell placed second in the long jump with a leap of 24'5 ?", behind Jeff Weaver of Army, who leapt 24'9". Costello finished second in the 5K in 14:35.33 behind American's Matt Seymour, who finished in 14:34.25. Arek was part of a four-way pole vault tie that earned all four competitors 1.75 points each. Arek's vault measured 14'9". Bucknell's 4x800 relay team picked up two more points, finishing in a fifth-place 7:44.33.
Army leads the men's scores with 73 ? points, with Navy (55 ?) and American (26) in front of the Bison and their 25 ? points. Lehigh (18 ?), Lafayette (10), Colgate (five) and Holy Cross (two) rounded out the team scores.
Competition will resume Sunday at 10 a.m. with field events, while running events will resume at 12 p.m. Saturday's competition schedule was interrupted by a power outage affecting much of the Susquehanna Valley that occurred shortly after 3 p.m. Power returned to Gerhard Fieldhouse at about 5 p.m., and the event schedule resumed at 6 p.m. following warmup time.
