After a week of hard work and preparation, the Hopkins men’s track team hiked to Bucknell University to take part in the 16th Annual Bison Open. This was a two-day event that closed out January and kicked off February for the Blue Jays.
Coming off of a solid weekend in Haverford where freshman Jesse Poore had the best performance of his young career, the team was feeling extremely poised. This time, it was senior Andrew Carey’s time to shine. “We have been working out in the cold the last two weeks, which has been tough. But overall, team morale has been high. People made adjustments, and I think it's been working," Carey said.
This was very apparent early on in the competition. One of the main events of the day was the men’s distance medley. The relay team was made up of seniors Julian Saliani and Steve Hyland, along with sophomore Trevor Holmgren and Carey. With a time of 10:09.38, the team beat the previous Hopkins record by a full two seconds. The 2011 team held the previous record (Ben Press, Brandon Hahn, Rob Martin and Elliot Wehner). The record breaking pace was set by Saliani, as he started the race by running 1200 meters in just over three minutes. Hyland and Holmgren, who pushed Hopkins ahead in the race, followed up his performance in the two middle legs. This positioned senior Andrew Carey in a very comfortable position to close out the race. His time of 4:11 in the final 1600 meter leg ended up being a personal record. Hopkins’ efforts landed them at the top of the leader boards for Division III teams in this event and boosted them into a top five ranking in the country.
The second day of the event started bright and early, and a well-rested Andrew Carey kept his personal success going. This time competing in the 800 meter race, he broke yet another Hopkins record. His time of 1:53.59 beat his friend Elliot Wehner’s previous record set in 2011 by just over one second. The previous record was 1:54.95. “It feels great to break a Hopkins record,” Carey said. “However, my goal this season was to qualify and place high for nationals. My time in the 800 should be good enough to qualify. There are some great runners in our conference, and it will be a lot of fun to compete with them.”
Carey’s final event was the 4x400 relay race. Carey, Poore, Hyland and Holmgren finished the race in second place and ran the fastest time in the event for Hopkins this season.
The mile run featured many more bright performances by several Blue Jays. Saliani finished the race in fourth place with an unbelievable time of 4:22.40. Junior Andrew Ceruzzi and senior Ryan Alvarez finished seventh and 12th respectively, running times of 4:23.08 and 4:28.47.
The crew of field athletes found a bunch of success at the Bison Invitational as well. Soaring to 6.77 meters, junior Alex Naticchia took third place in the long jump event. Junior Ryan Walsh added to his recent success by high jumping 1.94 meters, finishing third in the contest. Freshman Andrew Bartnett closed out the historic day for the Jays by taking second place in the pole vault by propelling himself over a bar set at 4.65 meters.
“[Andrew Bartnett] is an athletic specimen,” Carey said. “Everyone is starting to click at the right time.”
The future is looking bright for Hopkins as this week’s event proved to be another notch higher in their improving trend.
Hopkins has done a great job of boosting individual scores week after week. However, the even more impressive feat is that the Jays have continuously improved as a team throughout each week of the season. The team knows that they cannot let up now. They will resume their work and train harder than ever in preparation for another big event this coming weekend. Their next event is the Boston University David Hemery Valentine Invite. The event will take place on Feb. 7 and 8. The team hopes to continue their success in Boston and keep taking huge steps towards their goal of winning a Centennial Conference Championship.
