Track Opens Their Season at UMass

The women’s and men’s indoor track and field team opened up there 2018-2019 season this past Saturday after they traveled to the University of Massachusetts Boston. Although this was a non-team scoring meet, several PSU athletes set new school records or personal records.

Tim Gray (Derby, VT) started it off by setting a new school record in the weight throw, launching it 13.49 meters, which beat the previous record by over a meter. Jacob Rigoli (Essex, VT) also competed in the weight throw with his maximum distance of 12.28 meters, which earned him 17^th place. Junior Leo Shattuck (Grafton, MA) made himself a new record in the long jump, going 6.38 meters. Evan Dolecki (New Hartford, CT) was right behind him, literally, only .1 meters from him. Sam Pinto-Pannella (Land O’Lakes, FL) finished with a 12.19-meter throw in shot put.

Another freshman with a huge start to her collegiate career was Hannah Wescott (St. Johnsbury, VT). She set a school record in the 60-meter hurdles and gained herself a 12^th place finish. “I think technical wise my race went really well. I definitely didn’t get out of the blocks as fast I had hoped, which definitely caused some delay over the first two hurdles,” Wescott said about her race. She hopes to be able to race faster during the next meet and get her time down. She also competed in the pole vault and earned herself a 3^rd place finish with 2.75 meters. Emily Geyseleara (Cornwall Bridge, CT) made a dominant first-year appearance as she completed the 200-meter dash in 27.35 seconds. Freshman Joslyn Lanteigne (Berlin, NH) won the two competitions she entered in. First with the 60-meter dash (8.69 seconds) and then with the 200-meter dash (28.94 seconds).

“As a team, I think some great goals we have are just to improve as much as we can before LECs and score as many points as possible at that meet. We really need to focus in on our workouts and continue to be preventative of injuries to accomplish this” Wescott said about her team’s goals and her personal goals this season.”

The men’s and women’s team will host the annual PSU Winter Classic this Saturday and is set to start for 11 a.m. The teams will be back on the track January 12^th to go to the Middlebury Winter Classic after celebrating the holidays.