Utica Earns Program-Best 2nd Place Finish at ECAC's

Utica Earns Program-Best 2nd Place Finish at ECAC's

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ITHACA, NY – The Utica College men's track & field team earned a program-best second place finish at the 2017 ECAC Track & Field Championships hosted by Ithaca College on Saturday. The Pioneers earned 53 team points over the course of the two day championship.

Senior Erik Winberg (Rome, NY/Rome Free Academy) stepped up and broke the school-record while placing first and earning ten huge team points for the Pioneers in the men's 1000 meter race. Winberg posted a time of 2:32.14 and edged out Rowan's Kevin Veltre who recorded a time of 2:32.60.

Utica freshman Clarence Skipper (Albany, NY/Guilderland) broke the school-record in the triple jump and possibly punched his ticket to NCAA's with a distance of 14.46 meters to earn a second place finish for the Pioneers. He currently sits in 11th place nationally and will await any possible last chance meet result entries from around the country.

Utica's Nicodemus Gambill (Rochester, NY/East High) posted his second straight ECAC title in the men's 60 meter dash as he recorded a time of 6.88 to earn 10 team points for the Pioneers. Gambill did not compete in the men's 200 meter race, but he did team up with Tyler Wright (Little Falls, NY/West Canada Valley), Tyler Sutton (Deerfield, NY/Whitesboro) and Kevin Gangemi (Cornwall, NY/Cornwall Central High School) to break a school-record and earn a fourth place finish in the 4x400 meter race to capture five crucial team points for the Pioneers.

UC's Mitchell Marlow (Malone, NY/Franklin Academy) finished seventh in the men's mile with a time of 4:22.90 to earn two team points for the Pioneers. Nicholas Ashton (Whitesboro, NY/Whitesboro), Joe Topa (New York Mills, NY/New York Mills), Erik Gleba (Cassville, NY/Sauquoit Valley) and Mitchell Marlow (Malone, NY/Franklin Academy) placed fourth in the men's 4x800 meter relay race with a time of 8:05.73.

Utica's Kevin Gangemi (Cornwall, NY/Cornwall Central High School) placed ninth in the men's 400 meter dash with a time of 50.57, while Erik Gleba (Cassville, NY/Sauquoit Valley) earned two points for the Pioneers in the 500 meter race as he posted a personal-best time of 1:07.22.

Utica's Sam Kaczmarek (South Windsor, CT/South Windsor ) placed eighth and earned a point for the Pioneers with a toss of 15.02 meters in the men's weight throw.

Utica's Nicodemus Gambill (Rochester, NY/East High) and Clarence Skipper (Albany, NY/Guilderland) will now await potential bids into the NCAA Division III Track & Field Championships on Friday, March 10th at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. At the time of this release Gambill ranks seventh nationally in the 60 meter dash (6.86) and sixth in the 200 meter dash (21.99). Skipper ranks 11th in the triple jump (14.46 meters). 

ITHACA
The Ithaca College men's track & field team took third overall with 47 points.

Sophomore Derek Howes claimed second in the 500-meter dash with a time of 1:05.56, while junior Gerardo Munozwas third in 1:06.14.

The 4x800-meter relay squad of freshmen Patrick Robertson, Forest Stewart and Logan Winningham and sophomoreDaniel Hart took third overall in 8:01.21. The 4x400-meter relay team of Howes, Munoz, and freshman Robert Greenwald and Daniel Harden-Marshall clocked a time of 3:25.25 to place fifth.

Senior Larry Cass measured out 15.87 meters (52 feet, ¾ inches) to come in fifth.

After the completion of the heptathlon, junior Seth Abbott finished as the runner-up with 4720 points. Abbott won the 1,000-meter run in 2:46.81 and was second in the pole vault at 4.35 meters (14' 3.25").

ST. JOHN FISHER
Peter Girardi highlighted the meet for Fisher, turning a first place finish in the 60-meter hurdles where he posted a time of 8.24, Eddie Manaha also competed, taking sixth place at 8.46, one-hundredth of a second away from tying his personal record.
 
Girardi would also race in the 400-meter dash where he placed third with a time of 49.41. Jack Behlmaier competed in the 500-meter run coming in just fifth place with a time of 1:06.54.
 
The 4X400-meter relay team of Eddie Mahana, Josh Lambert, Tyler Wilkie, and Jack Behlmaier placed ninth in the event, crossing finish in 3:28.97.

STEVENS
Sophomore Greg Arabagian, freshman Nicholas DiMaria, sophomoreTom Selvaggi, and senior Nicholas Zickgraff combined to set a new school record of 10:04.54 in the Distance Medley Relay with a second place finish which is 17th fastest time in NCAA Division III this season.

Zickgraff also posted a 4:17.53 time in the mile run, finishing fifty-three hundredths behind the race winner. Arabagian finished sixth with a time of 4:22.25.

Senior Chris Banko posted a personal-best time of 15:08.69 in placing fourth in the 1,500. The 4x400 team of sophomore Alex Kainer, freshman Andrew Loth, DiMaria, and senior Zach Andrews ran 3:27.07 to finish sixth out of 12 teams.  

Kainer also posted a new personal best of 22.37 seconds in the 200 meter dash. The sophomore placed fourth. Andrews also placed sixth in the 500-meter dash with a time of 1:06.95, just one-and-a-half seconds behind the race winner.

Senior Neil Forrester finished ninth in the shot put, reaching 15.05 meters in fifth attempt.

ALFRED
Senior Jeffrey Nunez (Wurtsboro, NY/Ellenville) and junior Erik Diehl (Clarence Center, NY/Clarence) both finished in the top eight in their respective events to score points for their team, as the Saxons tallied 11 points to finish in 23rd place out of 48 teams competing.
 
Nunez finished second in the weight throw, with his toss of 16.32 meters breaking his own school record of 16.12 meters set in January 2016 at Houghton College. Diehl was sixth in the 800-meter run (1:56.35).
 
Junior Seth Spicer (Corning, NY/Corning-Painted Post) also competed for AU, but did not score. He ran the preliminaries of the 60-meter hurdles on Friday, and wound up placing 11th in the event (8.75 seconds).

NAZARETH
Nick LaBarbera and Matt Battaglia turned in season-best performances in their respective events for fifth place finishes.  LaBarbera finished the 400-meter run in 49.74 for fifth place.  In a jam packed 800-meter run, with five runners at 1:56 or better, Battaglia clocked a 1:55.97 to place fifth.

Also competing for Nazareth was Tyler Hancock who finished 10th in the weight throw at 14.60 meters (47 feet, 10 and 3/4 inches).