After spending the whole indoor season on the road and the last four meets away from the Queen City, the Buffalo track team had its only home meet of the year this Saturday at the UB Open.
"It's great to have a weekend where we don't travel," said outdoor track head coach Vicki Mitchell. "It's great for the team and we weren't able to have a home meet last year because of scheduling and then this year we had such a great crowd of support. To have the parents out here it just worked out great."
The Bulls made the best of the occasion with both sides crushing the competition on their way to taking first place in both the women's and men's events with each side winning 14 of the 19 events. On the women's side, Buffalo scored 267 points with second going to Geneseo State with 186. The men racked up 312.50 points with Geneseo State placing in second again with 182.
"There was absolutely beautiful weather today and I think our team made the most of it," Mitchell said. "There was a lot of different competition with all the schools in the events and the team had a great opportunity to play in front of their home crowd."
Freshman Ezekiel Porter and senior Stacy Downer each secured four first-place finishes by winning two individual events and being on both of Buffalo's winning relay teams.
Porter won the men's 100-meter dash with his 11.10 finish and the 200-meter dash with a 22.12 run. He was also a member of the 4x100-meter relay that finished with senior Reggie Rucker, sophomore James Graber and senior Roy Richards in 42.07. He then teamed up with senior Todd Joki, freshman John Connors and senior Paul Riley for the 4x400-meter relay for a season best finish of 3:31.39.
Downer was on the first place side of all the same events Porter won on for the women's squad. She took the 100-meter dash in 12.59 and had a season best in the 200-meter with a 25.42 finish. Downer also helped her team of sophomore Allison Grimes, freshman Leah Grasmeyer and junior Liz Anderson win the 4x400-meter relay in 4:06.68. In the 4x100-meter relay, Downer along with senior Dana Ventrone, freshmen Kimarie Black and Octavia Johnston set a season-best time of 48.22.
Along with helping the 4x100-meter relay team gain a victory, Rucker won both the 110-meter hurdles and the 400-meter hurdles. Rucker ran the 110-meter in 14.56 and the 400-meter in 52.72.
Senior thrower Sarah Vance won a trio of field events, as well. Vance improved her NCAA East Regional qualifying marks in both the hammer throw and the shot put and hit a season-best milestone in the discus. In the hammer toss, Vance had a 55.20-meter heave and then had a 15.41-meter shot put toss. She set her season-high in the discus with a 50.16-meter fling.
In field events on the men's squad, sophomore Jake Madonia had a career-best and an NCAA East Regional qualifying mark with his 16.97-meter heave. Junior P.J. Godios had a season-best javelin throw of 51.15-meters and freshman Sean Becker won the pole vault with a 4.45-meter leap.
On the women's side, seven Bulls had individual victories with four of the finishes being season highs. These included Grasmeyer's 1:09.89 mark in the 400-meter hurdles, sophomore Mary Veith's 2:16.59 finish in the 800-meters, a 5.80-meter long jump by sophomore Fatimah Hill and a 3.50-meter pole vault by junior Carrie Hinners.
"This is a good preparation for us," Mitchell said. "Today was more of a tune up date for us, both the men's and women's teams came up top for us today so really we had the opportunity to work on some technical areas for up to the next meet."
Next weekend, Buffalo will have participants at two different meets. One squad will be at the Penn Relays in Pennsylvania, Penn. starting on Thursday, April 26 to Saturday, April 28. The other will be at the Gina Relays in Hillsdale, Mich. on the same dates.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
