Chicago runners captured six individual titles this weekend at the Maroon’s second home meet of the winter track season this weekend. Both the men’s and women’s teams finished fourth against mostly Division I competition.
But the highlight of the meet was certainly fourth-year Patrick Sullivan’s victory in the 3K run. Patrick Sullivan won the event in a Henry Crown Field House record time of 8:20.06, bettering the old mark of 8:24.04, set by Carl Davies in 1995. He was just short of the 3K school record of 8:16.04 held by legendary Maroon distance runner Mike Axinn.
“Patrick’s performance in the 3K was pretty spectacular,” said head coach Chris Hall. “He lapped nearly the entire field. It’s difficult to break facility records at Henry Crown as this building has hosted phenomenal athletes over the years. What really struck me though is that he did it fairly easily and with no one within 30 seconds of him at the finish.”
First-year Emil Bojanov said of Sullivan, “Our captain showed us how to run a perfectly paced race against the clock. We were really impressed; he is an awesome role model, and we all look up to him.”
Bojanov’s remarks were echoed by another teammate, first-year middle distance runner Marc Roualet.
“Patrick leads this team every week by working hard during training, and today he showed us the rewards of that hard work,” he said.
The men’s team finished with 96.5 points, behind Augustana College, Valparaiso University, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Fourth-year Babak Yousefian won the 55-meter high-hurdles in 7.89 seconds. Bojanov won the 800-meter run in a time of 1:57.37. Third-year David Barr won the mile run in a time of 4:26.12. And third-year Brian Eichhorn won the pole vault competition, clearing a height of 4.33 meters.
Fourth-year Adeoye Mabojunge won the triple jump easily with a distance of 14.58 meters, just short of his earlier Division III-record jump of 15.15 meters.
The Maroons also had two runner-up performances in the meet as third-year Seyi Oyenuga finished second in the long jump competition with a distance of 6.50 meters and second-year Teage O’Connor was second in the mile run in 4:26.38.
“Overall I was pretty pleased with the results of the meet,” Hall said. “I like to measure our teams against previous seasons and where we were at this time in past years. Clearly we are competing at a higher level right across the board.”
In the women’s competition, second-year Jessica Winter won the mile run in a time of 5:11.40, just missing the NCAA Division III provisional qualifying time of 5:07.80.
“[Winter] is an awesome teammate and I’m glad she won the mile,” said teammate third-year Emily Kay.
Third-year Erin Steiner won the 3K in a time of 10:28.13, while second-year Gabby Jones was third in the long jump competition with a jump of 5.38 meters.
Fourth-year Val Anderson was third in the weight throw competition with a distance of 14.80 meters. With this mark she bettered the provisional qualifying standard for the Division III National meet of 14.60 meters, and she currently ranks ninth in Division III in that event.
The women finished fourth with a total of 74 points, behind UW-Milwaukee.
“This is a tough time of the season, when the freshness of the new year has kind of worn off and the end isn’t quite in sight,” Hall added. “I hope that with these meets our athletes just continue to put out great effort while fatigued from the training and for the most part that’s what I saw this weekend.”
The Maroons compete again this Saturday at the Carthage Invitational in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
