PAT LONGOBARDI — Sports Writer
In order to win, SCSU men’s track and field took a different route to dominate at the Northeast-10 Conference Championships.
The Owls placed in the top five in 15 out of a possible 19 events and finished in first place in six to win their 10th straight Northeast-10 indoor title—19th straight overall—in Boston, Mass.
SCSU finished first with a total of 165.50 points. Stonehill finished in second with 150 points while American International was third with 138 points.
SCSU head coach John Wallin was also named Northeast-10 Coach of the Year.
Wallin said it was not the kind of meet he expected.
“I think we did a great job and we took care of business,” he said. “It was not great marks, but they did the job. It was a tough meet because of travel day getting their late, so guys get tired and the meet could get intense. At the end, we kind of called off the dogs.”
“It is probably annoying to the conference [winning every year]. It is something we take pride in and it excites everyone to be at the top of the food chain. It is something we work hard for, and nobody wants to be the team that breaks the streak,” Wallin said. “If you are on the team that lost the first conference title, it can last a long time. We need to keep it in perspective and we tell the kids to just follow what we do everyday. Let the excitements of the meet inspire you to get good performances or it can hurt performances.”
Southern moved up one spot in the rankings to No. 7 nationally after the win and were the second ranked Northeast-10 school on the national poll.
The 4×800 meter relay team of Logan Sharpe, Josh Perry, Brian Robbins and Selasi Lumax set a new meet record in a first place finish with a time of 7:43.32.
Perry also broke the meet record and the school record in a first place finish in the 1000 meters at 2:25.17. The previous meet record was held by Macky Lloyd of the College of St. Rose set back in 2010 while the school record was held by Mike Lewis set in 1987.
Perry, a senior, said the team did well and many on the team were able to get good finishes.
“We had pretty good performances and guys stepped up for the team,” he said. “It was loud and we had a lot of cheering, and we did very well.”
“My performance was good. There were a couple of good runners [at the competition]. Angus MacDonald from UMass-Lowell is ahead of me for the mile, but he is not better than me. I led from start to finish in the 1000 [meters]. The competition was not really there. We need to qualify as many for Nationals [at New England Championships] and improve on qualifying.”
Nick Fedor was first in the weight throw with a distance of 16.77 meters and an NCAA provisional mark.
Fedor, SCSU senior co-captain, said the team did well and is always looking towards improving everyday.
“I think we were absolutely exceptional,” he said. “there were a lot of guys who were planning not to perform as well as they did. They [throwers] did exceptionally well. They had good performances and it was great to watch. I had mixed feelings about my performance. I threw pretty well and I did what I was supposed to.”
Wallin said many guys were fighting for points and were excited to compete.
“We left everyone on the 4×800 because they are good kids and wanted to break the meet record,” he said. “We called off a lot of events at the meet in the last events of the meet. A lot of kids stepped up for those one or two points that might not seem like a lot. Brian Nill came in third in the mile and was not even projected to score, which was kind of inspiring to the team.”
