COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Silver medals from junior Adam Myers and sophomore Sam Pope highlighted the final day of competition for the Ursinus College men's track and field team at the Centennial Conference indoor championships on Sunday.
When the dust settled inside the Floy Lewis Bakes Center field house, the Bears had finished in seventh place with 49 team points. Johns Hopkins ran away with the team title at 193.50 points, and the Blue Jays were trailed by Haverford (112), Swarthmore (87), Muhlenberg (70.50), Dickinson (65), Gettysburg (62), Ursinus (49), Franklin & Marshall (30), and McDaniel (27).
Myers was phenomenal in the shot put, outdoing his previous personal best by a more than three feet to earn the silver medal at 49-4.50; Myers was behind only Franklin & Marshall's Logan Lewis, who broke his own meet record with a throw of 52-6.00. Since the first CC indoor track championship in 1994, only five winning heaves traveled further than Myers'.
One day removed from a silver medal in the triple jump, Pope won silver in the long jump with a mark of 20-9.00, outperforming his fourth-place showing at last year's indoor meet. Johns Hopkins' Matthew Su lived up to his top seed billing with a 22-3.50. Freshman Matthew Gallagher was seeded 10th in the event but outdid expectations with an eighth-place leap of 19-8.25, good for a personal best and adding a point to the Bears' team total.
The 4x200-meter relay was a thrilling race, with the top three separated by a mere .08 seconds. The group of junior Jequan Mitchell, freshman Codi Yhap, freshman Austin Bittenbender, and freshman Andre Kelly finished in third place in a mark of 1:33.88, with Haverford claiming the top spot at 1:33.80 and Muhlenberg edging the Bears' foursome at 1:33.87. Kelly made a big push down the stretch and nearly overcame both the Fords and Mules, but his remarkable chase-down effort came up just short.
The Bears had two place-winners in the 400-meter run, with Yhap (52.74) finishing fifth and Kelly (53.31) in seventh.
Mitchell placed fifth in the 60-meter dash with a time of 7.17, just .05 seconds out of third, with Muhlenberg's Anthony Ware claiming the crown with a sprint of 6.96.
Junior Mitchell Kelly, sophomore Andrew Voyack, freshman Craig Lauer, and freshman James McDaid placed seventh in the 4x800-meter relay (8:20.75).
Junior Joseph Iuliucci ran a personal best by nearly ten seconds in the 800, crossing the line in 8:58.51 to finish fifth in his heat and 14th overall; he entered the meet seeded 26th.
Senior Dylan Ammons finished 22nd in the 800, registering a 2:08.63 in his final indoor race.
In the last event of the championship, the quartet of Yhap, freshman Brody Johnson, freshman John Haase, and Kelly finished fourth in a time of 3:32.61.
The Ursinus track and field teams host a last chance meet on Friday, March 3 to close the indoor season.
