Track And Field Takes On Colonial Reyes

Patrick Gustavson, Sports Editor

Coming off a strong showing to open the outdoor season, both the Central Connecticut men’s and women’s track and field teams returned to action at the Colonial Reyes meet at William & Mary University with individual athletes breaking personal records and even one winning an event.

Like many other meets during the indoor season and last week’s outdoor opener, the star for the Blue Devils was senior Sierra Nesmith, who won the 400-meter hurdles, barely edging out the second place finisher. According to the results, her time was good enough to qualify for the Eastern College Athletic Conference Championships.

In addition to being the only Blue Devil on either side to win an event on the meet, Nesmith finished in fourth place in the triple jump.

Heading into the meet, head coach Eric Blake said he hoped for some personal bests from his athletes and two of them delivered, one on each side.

For the women, junior Megan Brawner continued to impress in distance events by setting a new personal best in the 1,500-meter run with a time of 4:32.57, eclipsing her previous best by nearly a second.

On the men’s side, freshman Elias Field also set a new best in a distance event, breaking his previous best time in the 5,000-meter run by four seconds with a time of 15:27.39.

Many other Blue Devils were busy over the weekend, competing in multiple events.

On the women’s side, senior McKenna Killian earned a fifth-place finish in the high jump with a height of 1.56 meters. In addition, she competed in the women’s long jump, where her distance of 5.17 meters was good enough for a sixth-place finish.

Junior Hailey Rospierski joined Killian in the high jump, finishing not far behind her teammate with a height of 1.50 meters. She also recorded and an eighth-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 14.88 seconds.

Multiple members on the men’s side also competed in multiple events. Junior Julio Arredondo was on display at a variety of distances, running the 800-meter run in 1:57.88. He also ran the 1,500-meter run in 4:04.76.

Junior and captain Jack St. Clair finished the 400-meter dash in 52.64 seconds. In addition, in the long jump, he finished in 18th place thanks to a height of 6.22 meters.

A pair of sophomores on the men’s side competed in multiple events together as Miles Fye-Moore and Darius Wise both competed in the 100 and 200-meter dashes.

The Blue Devils will return to competition in Connecticut next weekend when they take on the UConn Northeast Challenge and are just three weeks away from hosting the CCSU Blue Devil Invitational on Apr. 27. The team will then host the Northeast Conference Championship one week later.