Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell University
Gulden Invitational
Men's Track and Field Wins Fourth Straight Gulden Invitational
1/24/2015 7:49:00 PM | Men's Track and Field
LEWISBURG – The Bucknell men's track and field team won its fourth straight Gulden Invitational on Saturday at Gerhard Fieldhouse. The Bison won nine events and scored 225.50 events, topping second-place Shippensburg (153.50) for the team title.
The Gulden Invitational was changed to a scored meet for the 2012 season, and the Bucknell men have won it every year since. It won the team race this year while turning in eight IC4A qualifying performances and winning both relay events.
Christian Lupica paced the Bison with titles in two events. He is already the school record holder in the 60-meter hurdles and the 200-meter dash and won both events with IC4A-qualifying times on Saturday. After qualifying for the finals with a time of 7.98 seconds in the preliminaries, he won in 8.00 seconds in the finals of the hurdles. He beat 22 runners in the 200-meter with a time of 22.00.
Lupica has owned the Gulden Invitational during his time with the Bison. He earned the event's MVP award for the third straight year.
Andrew Garcia-Garrison, the reigning Patriot League Track Athlete of the Week, won an individual race for the second straight invitational. He posted the program's eighth-fastest time in the 1,000-meter run, winning with an IC4A-qualifying time of 2:25.29. David Frering was two spots back in third.
"I feel much better about the men's team than I felt last month," said Bucknell head coach Kevin Donner. "They really did a nice job across the board in all of the events today. It was good to see Lupica back at full strength and Garcia-Garrison is looking good, as well. Lupica winning the MVP award for the third year in a row is special."
Kevin Tapper and Louis Tobias also won their events with IC4A-qualifying times. Tapper was first out of 16 in the 400-meter in 49.87, while Louis Tobias won the 800-meter in a field of 19 runners, crossing the line in 1:55.67. John Westwood also qualified for the IC4A meet with a runner-up finish to Tobias, while Jacob Ashkettle was the runner-up to Tapper.
Other individual winners for the Bucknell men were John Westwood in the mile (4:21.12) and William Bordash in the 3,000-meter run (8:49.83).
Finishing as runner-up but with IC4A-qualifying marks were Anthony Menza, who took second with a time of 1:05.31 in the 500, and Jack Fellows, who was second in the weight throw with a toss of 57-2. Fellows was also the runner-up in the shot put, while Brian Monahan was third in the weight throw.
The Bucknell jumpers had three top-three finishes as Nicholas Lombardo was second in the high jump, Kevin Tapper was second in the triple jump, and Zach Winters took third in the pole vault.
The Bison took three of the top four spots in the 5,000-meter run, paced by Glen Williams as the runner-up. Zachary Williams and Peter Murray were third and fourth, respectively.
Bucknell will send runners to two separate events this weekend as one group will stay home for the Bison Open & Multi and the other group will make the trip to the Penn State National Invitational.
Players Mentioned
