The Red was back in action this past weekend, hosting athletes from Oxford, Cambridge and Penn as part of the traditional Transatlantic Series between these schools. The Red teamed up with Penn to take on the Brits at the Robert J. Kane Sports Complex, and the combined American team came out victorious on both sides, with a 15-4 victory for the women and 14-5 win for the men.
Women’s head coach Rich Bowman noted how easy it was to get his team excited to compete in this meet.
“Anytime in the Ivy League when you can talk about traditions, it gets people more excited,” he said. “This is part of our history. They were ready to go; they were excited for it.”
Senior co-captain Victoria Imbesi was one of the top performers, netting three events wins in the shotput, javelin and discus. Freshman Claire DeVoe won the 3K steeplechase in 10:31.51, junior Ebolutalese Airewele won the 200m in a time of 24.80 and junior Ryan Woolley won the 400m hurdles in a time of 61.67.
Men’s head coach Nathan Taylor said he was pleased with the match, commenting on the degree of competitiveness he saw from his team.
“In general, I thought there were a lot of great individual performances,” he said. “I was pleased with how competitive everyone was in the face of less than ideal weather. It was great. It was nice to see [junior] Peter Roach do well.”
Roach, who sat out the indoor season with a high ankle sprain, won the pole vault clearing 16’8.75.” Also performing well for the Red was junior Montez Blair, who took the high jump clearing 7’.25,” junior Steven Bell with a win in the long jump, senior Bruno Hortelano-Roig winning the 400m and senior J. D. Adarquah winning the 100m.
With a little over three weeks remaining before the outdoor Heps finals hosted by Princeton, both the men and women’s teams are heading to the Bucknell Invite this weekend. The men’s team is also sending a smaller squad to compete at George Mason.
“This Bucknell meet is going to be exciting,” Bowman said. “It’s usually one of our highlight meets. We’ve got our whole team competing. We’ll see some really good teams — there’ll be probably eight to 10 really good teams there.”
Taylor said that as the season progresses, the men’s team looks to compete against stronger competition to prepare for the championship part of the season.
“It’s a bigger meet,” he said. “All of the stuff we do during the regular season is designed to build towards the Heps and the rest of the championship part of the season. I think some of the events will be really competitive. The men are sending a team of about a dozen to George Mason to see some different competition. We’re looking for a little bit more competition all of the time.”
Bowman also said he and his staff tell the athletes that the season is about development.
“The whole season is a process,” he said. “If they follow the process, they’ll arrive at the end successfully. It would help a lot if we could be outdoors more often, but we’re happy to have Barton Hall.”
Taylor added that upcoming meet will help the team prepare for the championship portion of the season.
“[The Bucknell Invite] turns up the heat a little bit,” he said. “It turns up the focus and the competition. For us, going against better and better teams gives us a better sense of the possibilities of what we can do.”
Original Author: Juan Carlos Toledo