Over the weekend, the Binghamton track and field teams traveled to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania to compete in the Bison Outdoor Challenge, hosted by Bucknell University. Despite there being no team scoring, the Bearcats came away with three podium placements, including one first-place finish.

“I thought the sprinters especially did well,” said Binghamton head coach Mike Thompson. “But the throwers and the few of the jumpers did pretty well too, so it was a good all-around meet.”

After winning the America East (AE) indoor title for the 60 hurdles in February, junior Jenna Chan captured the 100 hurdles with a time of 14.03 seconds. Other notable finishes on the women’s side were graduate student Stephanie Cassens who placed fifth in the 800, clocking in at 2:09.10 and redshirt senior Aziza Chigatayeva who secured sixth in the 1500 crossing the finish line at 4:18.59.

“[Chan] ran that race into a headwind which slows you down quite a bit,” Thompson said. “So to run the time that she did, despite being slowed down by the wind, was great. It was an exceptional race. If she had run the same race with a slight tailwind, it probably would have been a [personal record] by two or three-tenths of a second.”

The women’s 4×100 relay team, consisting of seniors Sophia Morone and Gabby Hyatt, freshman Angie Mesa-Espinosa and Chan placed sixth with a time of 47.04 to cap off a solid run-in from the Bearcat women.

“It was a good performance by [Morone, Hyatt, Mesa-Espinosa and Chan], not their best,” Thompson said. “They ran a pretty conservative race. It was fine, but they will run faster later in the season.”

On the men’s end, junior Brandon Love placed second in the pole vault with a measure of 16-0.75 feet. Love was one of the two podium finishers on the men’s side. Joining him was senior Marcrene Jeannot in the triple jump, earning a third place finish with a leap of 49-1 feet.

“That’s probably the best I’ve ever seen [Love] jump,” Thompson said. “He looked great, I thought he was going to jump higher, but if he keeps trending the way he is trending, he’s ready for a big jump.”

In addition, freshman Austin Wefer placed fifth in the 3000 with a time of 8:42.56 and sophomore Joey Cardascia captured sixth in the 400 crossing the line in 47.84 seconds. Cardascia’s time was good enough for second all-time in Binghamton track and field program history, trailing only Cazal Arnett’s time of 46.34 during the 2009 season.

“For [Jeannot] that was a really solid jump,” Thompson said. “It wasn’t far off from his personal best, and he looked pretty good. I think he’ll jump a lot further in the next couple of weeks.”

Binghamton competes again from Friday, April 21 through Saturday, April 22 at the Cavalier Challenge hosted by UVA. First event is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m at Lannigan Field in Charlottesville, Virginia.