IRVINE, Calif. -- The Cornell men's track team opened up the outdoor season on the annual spring trip to California on Saturday and came away with five event wins and 13 IC4A qualifiers at the UC Irvine Spring Break Invitational.
On the track, a big highlight was the impressive season-opening performance from the 4X100 as freshman Chris Bain, sophomore Jedidisah Adarquah-Yiadom, junior Chase Aaronson and sophomore Bruno Hortelano-Roig teamed up to run 40.82 to win easily and move to #4 all-time at Cornell. There were also several strong performances in the middle distances. Senior co-captain Adrien Dannemiller bettered the IC4A standard in cruising to victory in the 1500, crosing the line in 3:50.08. And in the 800, sophomore Nick Wade opened things up in the second lap with a convincing first place run of 1:50.80, easily under the IC4A standard. Freshman John Schilkowski ran 1:51.84 for second while junior Dan Thomas set a personal best of 1:53.34 for fourth. In the 400 hurdles, junior Brian Freitas placed first with a solid 52.32, an IC4A qualifier. Classmate Nick Huber was also under the IC4A standard in placing second in the 110 hurdles, running 14.81 for second; another junior, Dan Hagberg, was fourth at 15.00. The Big Red also had a good showing in the 100: Bain was second in 10.79 (an IC4A qualifier), Aaronson was third in 10.88, Adarquah-Yiadom was fourth at 10.93 and Hortelano-Roig was sixth at 11.03. Bain came back to get second in the 200 at 22.16 while Hortelano-Roig was third in 22.31. Senior co-captain Cody Boyd was sixth in the 400 at 49.99. The 4X400 closed things out on the track with an exciting win in the 4X400 as senior co-captain Chris Tait, Boyd, Freitas and Thomas ran 3:15.58 to hold off a hard-charging UC Irvine team.
In the field, the team was led again by junior Bob Belden. Belden claimed two event wins, easily bettering the IC4A standards in both as he reached 54-5 1/4 in the shot put and threw 166-3 in the discus. Sophomore Bob Feidler was fourth in the hammer, with an IC4A qualifier of 180-8. And in the javelin, freshman Jon Gancas was fifth at 182-5. Freshman Steven Bell was runner-up in the long jump at 23-7 1/4 while Aaronson was third at 23-4 as both sailed past the IC4A mark. In the triple jump, freshman Dan Scott reached 48-3 1/4 for second (an IC4A qualifier) and Bell came back to get fourth at 46-4 1/4. Scott also placed second in the high jump at 6-8 while Huber and junior Chris Arlinghaus both cleared 6-4 for third. Freshman Peter Roach cleared 15-3 for fourth in the pole vault.
A pair of alumni competed as well. Nate Jauvtis '99 cleared 14-3 1/4 for sixth and Pete Ippel '01 returned to competition in the high jump.
Complete results can be found here:
http://www.flashwest.com/results/2011track/11SpringBreak.pdf
A great week of training at the UC Irvine track awaits the Cornell teams and then they will compete again on Friday, March 25th at Cal State Fullerton's Titan Twilight meet.
