The St. Thomas Aquinas College Track & Field team competed this past weekend at the ECC Championships in Staten Island, where the Men's squad finished second and the Women took fifth.  

 

The Spartans had several individual winners on Saturday starting with St. Jacob Diodonet by winning the 200 and 400 for the fourth consecutive year.  His time in the 200 was 21.82, which is an ECC meet record and his 400 time of 48.11 was also an ECC meet record.  Dante Brown also hit a new meet record with a leap of 7.21m (23'8), winning the long jump as well as coming in 4th in the 60 meters.  Rickssen Opont took 2nd place in both the shot put and the weight throws with throws in the shot put of 15.58m (51'8) and 14.96m (49'1).  Frankie Schiavone took 2nd place in the 500 with a time of 1:07.60, and also helped the Men's 4x400 team of St. Jacob Diodonet, Josh Mallard and Mich Philistin win the conference in a time of 3:22.09.  Freshman, Kevin Bouyea took 4th place in the 800 with a time of 1:59.70 and earned 2nd Team All-Conference honors.  Aidan Russell took 4th place in the mile with a time of 4:32.43, which earned him 2nd Team All-Conference, and finished in 5th place in the 3000 with a time of 9:15.13.  Matt Tina took 4th place in the 5000 with a time of 15:50.11 and earned 2nd Team All-Conference honors as well.

 

The Lady Spartans also had some very impressive performances by both returners and freshman.  Rebecca MacLeod took 2nd place in the mile with a time of 5:14.30 and 3rd place in the 1000 in a time of 3:05.30.  Christina Maretzo took 2nd place in the 1000 with a time of 3:05.19 and then took 3rd place in the Mile with a time of 5:14.89.  Abagaile Kimbrell took a 3rd place finish in the 3000 meters with a time of 11:02.10 and took 5th place in the Mile with a time of 5:19.31.  Kayla Cobbelli took 5th place in the 800, with a new personal best time of 2:26.55.  Desiree Bermudez took 5th place in the 60 hurdles in a time of 9.69 and also hit a new personal best in the event in the preliminary rounds with a time of 9.68.  Newest member of the team, Ruby Pekin-Schlicht finished 3rd in the High Jump with a leap of 1.50 (4'11) earning 2nd Team All-Conference honors and also finished in 6th place in the hurdles with a time of 9.75. Freshman, Dunya Alan finished in 2nd place in the Triple Jump with a leap of 10.70m (35'1.25) earning herself 1st Team All-Conference honors and took 7th place in the Long Jump with a leap of 5.12 (16'9.75).

 

A small group of Spartans and Lady Spartans will be competing next Sunday, February 24th in the Boston University Last Chance meet, with hope of scoring a qualifing time or distance in order to reach the NCAA Division II National Championships.  The remaining members of the team will be preparing for the Outdoor Season, which begins at Nova Southeastern in Florida on March 12th.