On Feb. 19-20, the Monmouth Men’s and Women’s Track teams competed at their last Indoor Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Championship at the Fort Washington Armory in New York City.
Both the men and the women’s team victoriously won by at least forty points; the men scored 205 points and the women were 195. This was also the first indoor track championship since 2020 due to the pandemic.
Head Coach Mike Nelson spoke on the victory saying, “I am so proud of these students-athletes and the way they competed during this championship. To be elite, you have to be complete. That’s a mantra we’ve been using, and we made that a reality as we scored in every event. These titles are won in the months and years prior where so much hard work is put in. Our assistant coaches had our athletes ready to compete when it mattered the most.”
He added, “There are so many people to thank, the list is endless. It truly takes a village to earn a track & field conference title. Our administration and support staff have put us in a position to be successful and we’re so thankful for their efforts. This one was fun! Fly Hawks!”
In the women’s 800m finals, Monmouth swept the competition with finishes ranging from first to fourth place. The shutdown performance was led by senior Ashley Navarro, sophomore Katie Locker, junior Grace Kearns, and sophomore Sydney Todd.
In the 4x800m relays, the men and women dominated by both winning the relays. The men ran a meet record time of 7:36 for first place. The runners consisted of freshman Tennessee Tremain, senior James Hoffman, sophomore Stone Caraccio, and senior Lou DiLaurenzio.
Shortly after, senior Keellyn Cummings, Sydney Todd, Katie Locker and Ashley Navarro crossed the line for the victory in 9:00; this was one of the MAAC’s fastest 4×800 times.
In the distance events, junior Sammi Ragenklint in an exciting close race, earned second place with a school record time of 16:29. In the 3000 meters, graduate student Mackenzie Jones clinched third place and sophomore Marisa Kilgarriff ran 9:56.26 to get seventh place. For the men’s side, freshman Luke Miller ran a freshman record of 14:37.03 in the 5000m to score. Meanwhile, sophomore Sebastian Reed ran 8:22 in the 3000m to place third.
In the jumps, freshman Veronica Chaynov won the high jump in 1.65 meters and sophomore Kevin Kevelier won the event in 2.05 meters. In the triple jump, senior Mohamed Diagouraga won the event easily in 15.04. In the pole vault, senior Randy Showmaker won the event again for the last time in his indoor career. Behind him was sophomore Dalton Yeust, who also jumped an elite top ten school height of 4.80.
In the sprints, senior Jalen Jones won the 400 meters in 48.59. In the 200m freshman Yasmeen Tinsley ran a top ten time in school history running 25.34 and a freshman school record. In the 60m, freshman Rett Schnoor earned fourth place to run 7.84.
In the throws, Senior Alexis Uzoaru won the weight throw with a mark of 17.76 meters. Graduate student Prisca Blamon also threw an impressive mark in the shotput. Blamon threw 13.93 to place third. On the men’s side of shot put, junior Mujeeb Ali threw 15.92 meters to get second place and senior Jack Stuart threw 14.58 meters to earn fourth.
Following the competition, Nelson was awarded as the MAAC Men’s and Women’s Coach of the Meet. Freshman Yasmeen Tinsley who also had a very successful meet and was awarded Track Rookie of the Meet.
In addition, sophomore Kevin Kevelier was prestigiously awarded most Outstanding Field Athlete and Rookie Field Athlete of the Meet.
Up next, the Hawks will compete at the IC4A/ECAC (Eastern United States) Championships at Boston University in Massachusetts. This will be the last team meet for the indoor track and field season.
