Buffalo Bulls Track and Field breaks another record, finishes weekend at Penn State and SPIRE

After Barrett Kemp just missed a chance to give UB Track and Field a third school record this weekend, fellow distance guy Brian Crimmins, just 12 weeks removed from knee surgery, took care of business, breaking his own school record in the indoor mile with a 4:07.74 race. Crimmins now holds the top three* times in that event in school history.

*at least: UB only tracks the season best mark for each individual. Crimmins could have many runs in 2014 and 2015 slower than the listed times but still faster than Dan McKenna's old mark.

Penn State National Invitational

Some events, for the most part on the track, were split into Invitational and what I'll call 'Open' events. UB had a smaller group in general at this meet, but placed roughly equal numbers of student-athletes against the top competition at the meet as against the undercards.

Open:

On the men's side, Mitch Moore (4th, 400), Craig Kaiser (1st collegian, mile), and Jack Jibb (7th, 3000) provided some Buffalo representation, while Camaria Long (1st collegian, 200) showed her elite form and Melinda Wheeler (5th, 1000) reminded us that UB has a deep group of distance runners. 

Invitational:

In addition to Crimmins' record, a pair of other Bulls were within 1.25 seconds of their own. Tyler Scheving, already the record holder in the 800, ran 1:50.54 just over a second off his own mark but faster than any other Bull in history, while Josh Gali's 48.25 keeps him in second place in UB history but lowers his own personal best.

Field:

Hasani Rathan and Laurent Dure both cleared 2.00 m in high jump, with Rathan leading the way at 2.06m. We haven't seen Mike Morgan yet this year, but even if he's out in addition to Chris Reape (graduation), Rathan looks plenty capable of earning serious points alongside Dure at the MAC Championships.

In the shot, no surprise here, Ryan Cribbin and Devon Patterson were near the top of the list (2-3 in Collegians), but the treat is JON JONES, who creamed the field by 1.68 meters with a top throw of 20.82m, which I think is just 10 centimeters off his personal best set at last year's USA Track and Field Championships. If you remember, I wrote last year that I think Jones needs to get into the 21.30 range to regularly represent the USA in international competitions.

Kaishaun Cathey was 5th among collegians in the triple jump, though there was a sizable group of unaffiliated competitors in action.

SPIRE Mid-West Invite

It was really a paltry group yesterday at SPIRE, with only Adam Hunt making much noise at all from a small group of competitors. There wasn't much more today, but UB comes off with more accolades, almost entirely from the sprinters, who continue to impress top to bottom this year.

On the Women's side Amy Villarini (4th, 400), Sabrina Bush and Nikari Carota (1st, 3rd, 60H), Allison Mazur (2nd, 60), and Lauren Jenny and Brianna Colello (1st, 4th, 600) all found the top of their events. The Men had three place finishers in their 60 hurdles in Christian Doherty, JerMichael Bunch, and Anthony Clark, and Andrew Berge took 5th in the 3000. In the field events Taylor Woods took 4th in the Women's weight throw.