Over the weekend, the Binghamton men’s and women’s track and field teams split up to compete at both the 56th-Annual Colonial Relays and the Towson Invitational. While the BU throwers traveled to Towson, the remainder of the Bearcats went to William & Mary where two individuals registered first-place performances.
The two first-place finishes came from junior Marty Dolan and sophomore Josh Stone. Dolan emerged victorious in the 3K steeplechase, beating out the second-place runner by four seconds with a final time of 9:08.79. Stone’s 10K race was tighter at the line, but the Bearcat still took gold with a time of 29:45.04. Each of the two athletes scored 10 points for Binghamton at the weekend meet.
“The steeplechase, for [Dolan], we don’t have it indoors, [so] it helps him out because that’s his main event,” said Binghamton head coach Mike Thompson. “[Stone] is a great long-distance runner. Having those two events outdoors really allows them to shine a little bit more than they did indoors.”
Thompson seemed pleased with the progress that the Binghamton distance team has made since returning to a full season of competition.
“[Stone] is a great athlete, a great runner,” Thompson said. “I’m not surprised to see him do this well. Of course, he’s still very young, so it’s exciting to know that he’s going to be around for a while. The distance group in general has been doing very well this year. The junior class, the group that’s in their third year of college, we knew they were really talented when they came in … I think the combination of them having a relatively normal season with the fact that they’ve now been running in college for three years, we’re starting to see the results — the ability that they’ve always had.”
Binghamton also competed well off of the track. On Friday morning, senior Jake Restivo put Binghamton on the board after earning five points in the long jump. Although his jump of 22-11.25 feet was not close to his personal best performance, he managed the leap on his last attempt down the runway to rocket him into a scoring position.
“It was a solid performance for [Restivo],” Thompson said. “It was really an average distance for him, but he competed really well.”
In the men’s triple jump on Saturday, junior Marcrene Jeannot registered a personal best jump of 49-10.00 feet to finish second overall. Jeannot remains the second-best triple jumper in BU’s Division I history, only behind former triple jumper Matt Baker, who graduated in 2021.
“It was good to see [Jeannot] jump the furthest that he’s ever jumped,” Thompson said. “Last week, it was freezing at Lafayette so there was no chance for anyone to do extremely well because it was just too cold. [Jeannot] looked great. I’m happy with him. He’s motivated, he’s focused and I think he will do much better this year by the end of the season.”
Jeannot’s triple jump counterpart on the women’s side, graduate student Brittany Korsah, went home with bronze in the event. Following a jump of 39-08.00 feet on her second attempt, Korsah tied with the second-placed athlete from George Mason who was awarded silver for having the next-best jump between herself and the Bearcat.
“It was the most consistent [Korsah] has been in a long time,” Thompson said. “Even though it wasn’t her furthest jump ever, it was good to see her jumping well on every jump. When consistency happens, eventually big marks come.”
The Binghamton men’s team at William & Mary finished ninth out of 40 scoring teams and the women took 15th out of 38 competing schools.
The highest-placing BU athlete at Towson was senior Madison Krochina who took second in the women’s hammer throw with a distance of 162-86 feet. For the men’s side, senior Spencer Thomas delivered the strongest performance, taking third in discus after registering a 153-11-foot throw.
“I think [the throwers] looked pretty good going into the spring season,” Thompson said. “It’s nice to see our distance runners doing well, men and women. That’ll help our team outdoors. The hammer looks pretty solid too on both sides. I’m pretty happy with where we’re at.”
There was no team scoring at Towson.
Binghamton is next scheduled to compete at the Lehigh Invitational on Saturday, April 9. The meet is set to start at 10 a.m. at the Goodman Track and Field Complex in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Editor’s Note: Marty Dolan is a member of Pipe Dream staff as Assistant Fun Editor.