Nicholas Lombardo ’18 won the long jump with a personal best and took second in the high jump at the Youngstown State National Invite (Ohio) on Feb. 6-7 to qualify for the IC4A Championships. Elijah Kay ’17 was right behind to take third in the high jump, while Zachary Williams ’18 took fourth in the 5000 meter run, finishing with the fastest time for a Bison runner this season. Joseph Breen ’17 also made the program’s top-10 list in shot put with a second place finish.

“Our strengths seem to be the tremendous balance that we show in all of the event areas,” Head Coach Kevin Donner said. “Our next meet is the Bucknell Tune-Up and it is named exactly on what the focus will be. We want to fine tune some areas leading into next week’s league championship.”

At Notre Dame’s Meyo Invitational (Ind.), Christian Lupica ’15 advanced through two rounds of the 60-meter hurdles to take fifth in the finals (7.94). Andrew Garcia-Garrison ’15 took fifth in the mile (4:02.56), just missing his record-setting time. Throwers Jack Fellows ’15 and Brian Monahan ’15 each had throws that made the program’s top-10 list. The two-day invites at Youngstown and Notre Dame allowed several Bison to qualify for the IC4A Championships.

“The highlight of the weekend was qualifying for the IC4A meet,” Lombardo said. “Going forward I have to get used to doing multiple events within a two-day span to be acclimated to a championship-style meet.”

Also at Youngstown, Peter Murray ’16 finished behind Williams in the 5000-meter run in ninth place, and Cole Conte ’16 took third in the 1000-meter with David Frering ’18 just behind in fourth. Griffin Robertson ’16 finished fifth in the 500m, Maxwell Prizant ’18 took fifth in pole vault, and Jordan Jackson ’17 finished fifth in the 800m.

 “The highlight of my weekend was getting to see some of my teammates break out and hit some big marks,” Conte said. “A lot of the guys really stepped up this week, which is a great sign heading into the league meet.”

Other IC4A qualifiers from Notre Dame’s invitational include 800m runners Alex Jagelsky ’15, John Westwood ’16, and Louis Tobias ’17. Jagelsky finished seventh with the third-best time in the history of the program, and Kevin Tapper ’15 finished with a qualifying time in the 400m. Tapper, Lupica, Anthony Menza ’16, and Jacob Ashkettle ’17 teamed up to run the 4×400 and finished with the eighth-fastest time in Bison history.

“It was a lot of fun to have quality team bonding time throughout the weekend. I loved being able to watch my teammates perform well in many of their events,” Williams said. “I would like to experience even more of the family mentality we have as a team, as we all help tune up for the Patriot Leagues.”