Posted: 01/28/2012
BETHLEHEM, Pa. – In its lone dual meet of the season, the Lehigh men’s track and field team defeated rival Lafayette 97-84 Saturday at Rauch Fieldhouse. While the Mountain Hawks only had seven first-place finishes in the 16 events, Lehigh used its depth to make up for it. Lehigh won three track events and four field events, highlighted by junior Christopher Buck’s first place finishes in the shot put and weight throw.
“It was really important for us that when we didn’t win an event, we got second and third,” said head coach Matt Utesch. “And when we did win event, we had the top two or three places. Our depth really pushed us through and we had some great performances. We had a significant number of guys dealing with injuries or who were under the weather, but everybody rose to the occasion and it was just an outstanding team effort.”
Buck won the shot put with a distance of 15.07 meters ahead of freshman Ryan Rhodes who was second with a distance of 13.83 meters. Buck then won the weight throw with a distance of 16.01 meters just in front of sophomore Benjamin Beauchamp who took second with a distance of 15.96 meters.
For his efforts, Buck was named Lehigh's Male Field Athlete of the meet.
Senior Stephen Tutunjian improved to 5-0 in the triple jump this season and he won Saturday’s event with a distance of 14.78 meters. And in the high jump, Lehigh took the top three spots as freshman Adeolu Adesida took first with a distance of 1.92 meters.
In the track events, sophomore Seth Robinson won the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.37 seconds, just 0.11 short of an ECAC/IC4A qualifying time while sophomore Ryan Paquin followed closely in second with a time of 8.53 seconds.
Robinson was named Lehigh's Male Track Athlete of the meet.
Lehigh also took the top two spots in the one mile run as sophomore Samuel Bernitt won the event with a time of 4:21.88 while senior Evan Flach crossed the finish line a second later with a time of 4:22.80.
The Mountain Hawks continued to use their depth as again they took the top two spots, this time in the 1,000-meter run. Freshman Gregory Caldwell won the event with a time of 2:36.45 while freshman Simon Voorhees was close behind, finishing second by 0.54 seconds.
It was the 22nd all-time dual meet between Lehigh and Lafayette as the Mountain Hawks improved to 9-13.
The Mountain Hawks will look to keep the momentum going as they head to the New Balance Invitational at the NYC Armory on Friday, February 3rd at 10:50 a.m.