The Central Connecticut Men’s and Women’s Track & Field team hosted its annual Blue Devil Invite at the CCSU Track & Field Complex on April 24 to close out the regular season.
The meet came after many of the runners and fielders took on Storrs for the UConn Northeast Challenge the previous weekend, where Greyson Golda broke a school record in discus.
The Blue Devil Invite also served as the team’s annual celebration of its graduating athletes, with a Senior Day ceremony preceding the event.
Nuchwara Inthasit headlined the Blue Devils, finishing first overall in the 100-meter dash, 200-meter dash and the 4×400 relay. Inthasit now holds the school record in the 200 meters with a time of 24.66, which broke Sherise Truman’s record of 24.68 that she set in 2019.
Central kicked off the day successfully with a top-4 sweep in the men’s steeplechase, led by Aaron Allen’s 9:53.63 time. Isabella Jensen also led teammate Isabelle Mondo in a top-2 sweep for the women’s steeplechase as well.
After a second-place finish in the 4×100 by Tristan Burke, Cory Bates, Octavius Richard and Jordan Jackson, the distance runners took to the track for the 1,500, with Chris Abbey taking a team-best second-place finish.
Tristan Toussaint took home a first-place finish in his heat of the 110-meter hurdles, with teammates Kenny Agwu and Julieen Lopez finishing in second and third in their heat, respectively. Similarly, Shantana Smith ran a 15.75 to win her heat, with teammate Alissa Hurd taking good points in the previousheat.
Lucas Figueiredo led a Central sweep of the top 3 in his section of the 400, putting down a 47.59 lap time, with the team’s points backed up by a second-place effort by Caleb Harris in a later heat. The women saw similar success with Sultana Ali in first with a 58.66 ahead of teammate Jessica Farrell in third, while Madeline Doran scored second in her heat with Payton Mozelak winning hers at a 1:09.
Tristan Burke and Octavius Richard backed up their win in the 4×100 by sweeping the top 2 positions in the 100-meter dash, with Burke ripping a 10.74 time in his win. Eli Crofford and Jordan Jackson finished second and third respectively. Nuchwara Inthasit won her heat with a 12.08 and Tatiana Gaither and Jasmine Ogando backed up another sweep with Gaither running a 13.29.
The men were second, third and fifth in the first 800-meter heat led by Jack Ciambra’s 2-minute run, while Aidan Budge and Dylan Bathrick were able to place second and third in their heat. Mya Morabito and Marcela Lozada both took victories in their respective heats, with Morabito clocking in at 2:16.17, and later on Miochie Louis was able to bag a podium by just a hair to get more points on the board for Central.
Kenny Agwu’s 55.01-second 400-meter hurdle time led the way for CCSU in second place of his heat, with Tristan Toussaint bagging points in the second heat. Ava Gattinella, meanwhile, led teammate Shantana Smith for a victory at a 1:12.76 time. Mimi Agwu and Alexandra Edwards would also place well in later heats of the hurdles.
Lucas Figueiredo made things exciting to kick off the 200m by barely eking out a victory, leading fellow Blue Devil point scorers Octavius Richard and Jayden Brown with a 21.57 time. The women dominated their side of the 200 with Kyrah Smith second, Shania McCall first and Nuchwara Inthasit first all in their respective heats.
William Liebler led the way in the 3,000 for Central at 8:43.19, leading fellow point scorers Connor Garrett and Michael Kraszewski. For the final running event of the day, the CCSU men swept the top 2 (the winning quad including Maxwell Czarnecki, KyMoy Phillip, Julieen Lopez and Gabriel Kwarteng), while the women bagged a solid fourth place.
Moving from the track to the field, Nathanyel Davis took home a victory in the triple jump with a 14.04-meter final jump. Alexander Figueiredo took home a fourth-place finish in the high jump, with his 1.90-meter max the best of any Blue Devil jumper.
Tristan Smith took the final spot on the podium in the shot put after putting down a 16.40-meter throw. Greyson Golda, who took home a CCSU record 53.54-meter discus throw the previous week at UConn, backed up his record-setting day with a bronze ahead of Smith. Kyle Martin and Zach Bonini placed well in the javelin, both scoring points in sixth and seventh respectively.
Head Coach Eric Blake was positive about how his team performed during the invitational, in particular shouting out Nuchwara Inthasit with her two wins.
“Nuch Inthasit had a great senior day,” Blake said. “She broke the school record in the 200. A great way to cap the day.”
He noted that some of his athletes were saving some of their stuff to prepare for next week’s conference championships, which will also be at CCSU.
“Our home meet is really to get ready for the NEC Championships next weekend,” he said. “So we may go a little shorter in some events to work on speed this week before the conference meet.”
He also said that they are very motivated for the NEC Championships and ready to give it all they have. CCSU will host the NEC Championships on May 2 and May 3.
