After minor struggles at their last event, the Colgate Invitational, the Binghamton University track and field teams displayed solid effort and kept the momentum going at the event this past weekend, the Collegiate Invitational.

Sophomore Erik van Ingen highlighted Binghamton’s performances with a third-place achievement in the mile, thanks to his 4:02.39 finish. That was good enough to reach the NCAA qualifying standard and easily destroy teammate Casey Quaglia’s mark of 4:16.47 set last season. BU head coach Mike Thompson enjoyed every bit of van Ingen’s spectacular performance.

“I thought it was great to see him run that fast,” Thompson said. “It is exciting when you can get anyone on the national list, so it was cool. He was happy, but he has high expectations, so now he is looking at four minutes.”

Other notables include sophomore Christian Smith who accomplished a 1:06.31 in the 500-meter dash championship to finish first in his section. The men’s 1,600-meter relay team also recorded a second-place finish in their section with a time of 3:16.56. Thompson thought there were signs of encouragement to be taken from the way the relay team competed.

“It was nice to see them get the school record,” he said. “They ran a solid race. They tend to run better around conference and I think they are in great shape.”

Over on the women’s side, it was freshman Michelle Eberhart who took sixth in the long jump with a mark of 16-8.75. Another freshman, Kaitlin Sullivan, finished third in the 60-meter hurdle preliminaries with a time of 9.44. Thompson made it clear that the women looked very sharp in preparation for the upcoming America East Championship in Boston.

“They looked the best they have all year,” he said. “We had two women’s 4-by-4 and they both ran faster than they have run this year. The jumpers and sprinters looked good as well; they are on the right track.”

The Bearcats’ next event is the tri-meet against Syracuse and Albany on Friday at the Events Center.