Men's Track and Field Competes at Home for First Time in 2021

Sunday, March 28

Lewisburg, Pa.

All Day

Bucknell University

UMBC and Saint Francis (Pa.)

Photo by: Virginia Athletics

Men's Track and Field Competes at Home for First Time in 2021

3/28/2021 10:05:00 PM | Men's Track and Field

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- The Bucknell University men's track and field team hosted its first meet since 2019 on a rainy and windy day at Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium.

Results

"First of all, I was very happy to get the entire meet in," said Head Coach Kevin Donner. "The weather forecast did not look good, but it was good enough to compete. Saint Francis has a good team, and gave us a very competitive meet. They had a lot of first and second place finishes, but our overall balance was able to prevail. I thought our throwers did a great job in all four events to outscore the other two teams. Marino hit 16 feet on the pole vault, and Zamarra had a great shot put, while Montero and Kelly did great in the javelin. Bodisch continues to run great in the 400 hurdles, and I loved to see Whitaker in the 5K with a huge race. Gardner won a very exciting 1500, while Rayven Sample took first in the 400. The excitement of our mixed gender 4x400 was fun to see, as many of our guys got in some great work as well. I thought the guys were much improved over last week, and I look forward to continued improvement next week when we go to Lehigh."

The Bison won the meet, edging out second place Saint Francis 159.5-138.5. Bucknell won eight events overall.

Nicholas Marino improved upon last week's mark of 15-7 (16-0.75) in comfortably winning the event. Marino's personal-best mark of 16-7.25 ranks second in school history behind Matt Fay (17-0).

Jordan Montero won his second straight javelin event, improving by just over three feet (198-09) to finish ahead of teammate James Kelly (187-03). Anthony Zamarra also impressed in the throws in the shot put (52-10.25) Zamarra found his way onto the Bucknell top ten list last week (52-2.75), and improved upon that mark to move all the way up to seventh on Bucknell's all-time list just ahead of Stephen Koullias (52-7.75).

In the 400 hurdles, Brendan Bodisch took top honors in a field of six Bucknell runners (54.82). Bodisch continues to come close to his personal best time of 54.28 that ranks ninth in the Bucknell record books. Bodisch also ran the anchor leg on Bucknell's 4x100 team that included Kevin Boyle, Matthew Perello, and Caleb Wooten.

Samuel Whittaker earned an impressive victory in the 5000 (14:38.03) after earning All-Patriot League honors in cross country in the fall. Whittaker distanced himself ahead of runner-up Brendan O'Toole (15:22.25), in earning a comfortable win in his first time ever competing in the event.

In the 1500, Riley Gardner took a narrow victory over Joel Evans of UMBC (4:03.16), while Rayven Sample (50.29) took first in the 400 while also competing in the 200 (22.86).

The Bison had a good showing in the 800 won by Will Hanna-Leverett of UMBC. Robert Dessoye, Alex Simpson, Owen Chase, Michael Gertz, and Alex Dessoye finished second through sixth, with R. Dessoye ahead of the pack (1:57.30). R. Dessoye ranks eighth on Bucknell's all-time list in the event (1:51.43).

Bucknell will travel to Lehigh next weekend for a meet on Saturday, April 3.