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With NCAAs less than a week away, the Oswego State men`s and women`s track and field teams traveled to RPI for the 2014 ECAC Championship. The regional championship, which showcases the best athletes from teams all across the eastern states, lived up to its billing as one of the toughest meets in the nation.
For their efforts throughout the outdoor season, Matt Wagenhauser and Katie Bott each earned bids to the NCAA Division III Outdoor Track and Field Championship by qualifying in the 800-meter run. Wagenhauser is seeded fifth in the preliminaries while Bott nabbed the 22nd and final spot in the women's preliminary. Bott is making her second-straight appearance in the NCAA Championship, as the senior qualified for the 800 in the indoor season.
On the men's side, the all-junior relay team of Wagenhauser, Brandon Comden, Nick Reinsdorf and Arek Janigapointed the team in the right direction early on, capturing fourth place with their second best performance of the year in 3:19.66 on Thursday evening. The next afternoon, Wagenhauser doubled back to claim second place in the 400, narrowly missing his first ECAC championship by 4/100ths of a second. Along with the silver medal, Wagenhauser earned All-ECAC for his performance.
Reinsdorf added a top-10 finish to his list of accolades in the 800 this season, closing out the year with a 10th place finish in a time of 1:55.56.
Jake Zaft finished his career with the Lakers by helping Comden, Adam Crumb and Chris Bridgewater in the 4x100 relay take a 12th place finish. Graduating on Saturday, Zaft leaves the program with a school record in the relay, which he earned at the Roc City Classic back in April.
The men finished the meet, with 13 points to take 19th place overall (out of 57 scoring teams), an improvement of 11 spots from their finish indoors and a dramatic improvement over 2013, when the team did not factor in team scoring.
On the women's side, Bott fought her way through one of the windiest events of the day, clawing through 20 miles per hour gusts to improve on her seeding and take home silver in the 800 with a time of 2:16.09. Bott earned her second-straight All-ECAC award for the effort.
The 4x400 relay of Bott, Marissa Pariseau, Valeria Kudinov and Kristen Harrigan narrowly missed scoring in the meet, taking ninth overall with the second-best performance in school history 3:55.76. In the race, Harrigan's 58 second split proved to be yet another impressive run for the junior quarter-mile runner.
Competing against a field that included six All-Americans from the indoor season in the high jump on Friday, seniorEmily Wild cleared a new lifetime best of 1.59 meters (5'2.5") to close out her career. Wild's performance was the third time in as many meets that she has set a new seasonal- or lifetime-best in the event. During her four years, Wild's recent performance marks an improvement of over half a foot throughout the course of her career.
