Dexter Jules ’08 (right)
Indoor Track and Field It is becoming old hat but never tiresome. The men’s and women’s track and field teams just win and win when it comes to the MAAC Indoor Track and Field Championships. On Feb. 22, the men and women both won the championship meet at the Armory Track and Field Center, where freshmen hurdler Siri Fagerlund and shot putter Marina Vojinovic set MAAC records. It was the 12th MAAC Championship in a row for the men and the 11th time in the past 12 years for the women. The Lady Jaspers tallied a whopping 278.50 points, while the men’s team scored an impressive 214 points. A string of wins dominated the field events. In addition to going 1-2 in the women’s shot put, Manhattan placed 1-2-3-4 in the men’s long jump; 1-2-3 in the men’s triple jump, high jump and weight throw; 1-2 in the men’s shot put and women’s long jump; and first and third in both the men’s and women’s pole vault. In the men’s long jump, senior Denis Street took first place with a mark of 7.04m, followed by senior Dexter Jules in second (6.78m), sophomore Jamie Spataro in third (6.74m) and junior Kosta Randjic in fourth (6.71m). Randjic took first place in the men’s triple jump with an NCAA “B” qualifying mark of 15.48m, which missed the meet record by one centimeter. Jules placed second (14.65m), and Street came in third (14.40m). Senior Chris Sole won the men’s high jump in 2.04m, followed by senior Nikolay Tkachenko in second (1.89m) and junior Jason Grant in third (1.89m), as a result of a jump-off. Tkachenko also marked 4.50m to win the men’s pole vault, while sophomore
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DeSean HooShing came in third (4.35m). The men also scored well in the weight throw and shot put events. Senior Paul Peulich took gold in the weight throw at 18.04m; sophomore Seid Mujanovic placed second (17.49m); and senior Rich Reuter grabbed third (16.08m). In the men’s shot put, senior Milan Jotanovic continued his hot streak with a toss of 18.92m to finish ahead of teammate Reuter (15.43m). On the women’s side, Vojinovic’s toss for the shot put landed at 14.73m to break the MAAC record. She finished ahead of freshman Ana Ugarkovic, who marked second place at 11.76m. Sophomore Malin Marmbrandt leaped to gold in the long jump at 5.65m, ahead of Ugarkovic, who took second (5.26m). Marmbrandt also won the women’s triple jump with a 12.05 mark. In the pole vault, grad student Meredith Mante won with a vault of 3.60m, and sophomore Alexandra MacDougall took second (3.00m). The Jaspers racked in more wins in the track events. Among the women’s sprinters, Fagerlund broke the 55m hurdle record by one-tenth of a second and won the event in 8.17s. Fellow teammate Marmbrandt placed fourth in the event, and junior Cara Hessels scored a fifth-place finish. Sophomore Diane Torsell won the 55m dash in 7.18s and edged out Fagerlund (7.23s). In the women’s 200m dash, Torsell took her second gold of the evening in 25.32s. Senior Erin Gregorek won the women’s 400m dash in 59.36s. For the men, Jules took his second gold in 6.52s in the 55m dash, and sophomore Justin Chiaravalle finished first in the 55m hurdles
in 7.94s. Freshman Nick Estis won the gold in the 200m dash in 22.43s. He placed third in the men’s 400m dash at 50.01s, just ahead of junior Kelton Cumberbatch (50.29s). In the distance running events, senior Eryka Perreault won gold in the 800m in a time of 2:17.69s, followed by sophomore Jelena Rankovic, who took silver in 2:17.82. Freshman Andreina Roel took bronze in the 3,000m with a time of 18:21.32. The Lady Jaspers also nabbed gold in the women’s distance relay, which the team won in 12:39.56. They won silver in the 4x400m relay with a time of 4:03.56. On the men’s side, sophomore Milos Vuckovic placed second in the 800m with 1:55.96. In the men’s 3,000m run, freshman Brendan Brethel finished sixth and his 8:38.22 time qualified him for the USA Track and Field National Junior Championships. Many Jaspers earned performance awards, including Marmbrandt, who also won the women’s long and triple jumps and was named the meet’s Co-Outstanding Female Field Performer. Torsell was named Most Outstanding Female Track Performer, and Jules was named Most Outstanding Male Field Performer. Impressively, just a few weeks before the men’s and women’s extraordinary success at the MAAC Championship, the Manhattan men’s track and field team secured the program’s 35th Metropolitan Indoor Championship title, while the women tied Columbia for third place at the Mets. The highlight of the Mets was Jotanovic, who took home the gold medal with an NCAA “A” Championship qualifying toss of 19.47m.