By Andrew Lichtenauer
Contributing Writer
The men’s track and field team claimed both MVP honors in its first scored meet of the season last weekend in Gerhard Fieldhouse. Patriot League Rookie of the Week Christian Lupica ’15 led the Orange and Blue, setting three program top-10 records in the team’s dominating victory over Shippensburg, Duquesne, Mount St. Mary’s, Towson and Saint Francis (Pa.).
Overall, the Bison finished with 241 points, beating out their closest competitor by almost 100 points.
Chris Sacks ’14 and Tom Barr ’12 earned the MVP honors for the Orange and Blue, claiming the meet’s Most Valuable Runner and Most Valuable Field Athlete, respectively. Both men won gold in two individual events apiece, Sacks in the mile and 4×800 relay and Barr in the weight throw and the shot put.
Lupica won the 60-meter hurdles in a personal-best 8.24 seconds, which moved him up to third all-time in program history. Lupica’s 22.32 seconds in the 200-meter dash put him eighth in program history, while his 7.08 seconds in the 60-meter dash put him sixth in the record books.
“I was really well prepared for this meet physically. As a team we have been on campus since Jan. 3 training really hard with two-a-day practices almost every day,” Lupica said. “The coaching staff decided that instead of running in a meet two weeks ago we would just have the weekend off and train through for the Gulden Invite. Because of that, my legs felt really fresh and I was able to capitalize off all of the work we put in while we were on campus over the break and run competitively in multiple events.”
Four more Bison won individual events in the meet. Daniel Markwalter ’13 took gold in the pole vault, Jason Brown ’13 in the high jump, Dustin Horning ’13 in the 800 meter run and Jordan Donaldson ’12 in the 500 meter run.
“The fact that we were able to win the meet by so much really shows our strength as a team which hopefully will continue on for the rest of the season through the championship meets,” Lupica said.
The Orange and Blue return to competition at both the Bison Open & Multi and Penn State National Invitational this weekend.
