A string of distance event victories led the Geneseo men’s and women’s indoor track and field squads’ performances on Friday Feb. 15 at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
In the men’s competition, senior Chris Mateer led a strong group of runners in the mile. Mateer came in second place, less than a third of a second behind the winner. Senior Tim Chambers and sophomores Cohen Miles-Rath and Billy Gabriel followed in fifth, sixth and ninth places, respectively.
“Mateer could make a big difference. He tends to really step it up when it matters the most,” head coach Dave Prevosti said before the meet.
Prevosti added that sophomore Phil Longo “could potentially score in three jumping events.”
Although Longo did not participate in the meet, classmate Luke Taverne picked up the slack, winning the high jump by being the only athlete to successfully go over six feet, four inches.
Other notable performances from the men’s team included senior Mike Mattiucci’s third-place showing in the 3,000-meter run, junior Patrick Wortner’s victory in the 5,000-meter run and senior Brendan Murphy’s fourth-place performance in the weight throw. In addition, the team of seniors Chris Carter, Jesse Cleary-Krell, Alex Brimstein and junior Anthony George triumphed in the distance medley relay.
Sophomore Keira Wood, junior Allison Hoh, senior Cailin Kowalewski and graduate student Alyssa Smith highlighted the women’s results as they dominated the distance medley relay race. Their time of 11 minutes, 52 seconds was more than a minute faster than the second-place team and ranks as the second-fastest time in Division III competition this winter. The only faster time thus far this season was by the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, whose distance medley relay team posted an 11:43 time. Should both teams remain injury-free and make it to the NCAA championship meet, Prevosti said he believes Geneseo is capable of running around 11:45.
In other women’s team action, senior Diahann Cuevo came in first in the 60-meter dash, Kowalewski conquered the 800-meter dash and junior Mary Aldridge finished first in the mile. Smith finished third in the 800, freshman Shannon Murphy came in a close second in the 1,000-meter run and senior Erin Dorset and freshman Rayanne Luke finished third and fourth, respectively, in the 5,000-meter run.
The Knights travel to SUNY Brockport on Feb. 23 to compete in the SUNYAC championship meet, where the men will be looking to repeat as champions and the women will try to regain the title for the first time since the 2005-06 season.