On Friday, March 2, the Geneseo indoor track and field teams traveled to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. for a two day meet to compete in the Eastern College Athletic Conference championships. This meet featured teams from several area schools including the eventual champions SUNY Brockport for the men's division and St. Lawrence University for the women's.
Overall, neither of the squads fared particularly well at first glance. The men's team finished in eighth place overall with 29 points and the women's team finished 27th with 10 points. Their strategy, however, was not to win this meet but to use it, as they have with the past few meets, as a chance for individuals to qualify for the NCAA meet. Coach Dave Prevosti explained this strategy saying, "We're using these meets to help us qualify as many athletes as possible for nationals and overall we did quite well in that area."
Several of the outstanding performances from the small contingent of Geneseo athletes included the lone victory for the men's team by senior Ross Hunkovic. Hunkovic captured the mile race by the slim margin in a time of 4:15.34, outrunning the second place finisher from Southern Maine by less than three tenths of a second. Senior Joe Goodspeed had another excellent outing in the high jump with a jump of 2.04 meters, good enough for second place overall. Goodspeed, however, did not fare as well in his other two events, finishing seventh in the long jump and getting disqualified in the triple jump. He is already automatically qualified for the NCAA meet in all three events. Junior Ryan Mulcahy also placed in the top 10 twice with a fifth place finish in the 3,000 meters in 8:49.80 and a ninth place finish in the 5,000 meters in 15:21.54.
For the women's squad, their lack of numbers again limited their opportunities to score overall points. Junior Meghan Nolan accounted for all of Geneseo's points by winning the mile run in an NCAA provisional time of 4:58.92.
Next weekend the Knights travel to Terre Haute, Ind. for the NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships, hosted by the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Geneseo athletes will be competing in almost every event held over the two day championship meet and they look to place highly against the national powerhouses of the division.