Lehigh University
Lehigh Season Opener
Mountain Hawks optimistic after first indoor meet
12/5/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Track and Field, Track and Field, Women's Track and Field
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The meet gave Lehigh track and field coach Matt Utesch plenty of reason to smile despite not being scored for teams.
“I’m very pleased,” Utesch said. “Our freshmen are everything that we thought they could be, and maybe a little more.”
Utesch said going into the meet he was excited to see how his freshman class performed under the pressure of Division I competition, and their results justified his high praise for their work ethic. One of the biggest demonstrations of the class’ depth and talent was in the high jump, where three freshmen swept the top three spots in the event. Kyle Forrest won the high jump with a personal-best 1.95 meter jump, followed closely at 1.90 by Alex Maurer and Steve Rumizen.
“The gang of three did a great job today,” Utesch said of his group that will compete in the decathlon this year. “They competed in a lot of events today, and they really delivered in all of them.”
Stephen Tutunjian brought home another men’s title for a freshman in the triple jump, flying 13.04 meters to take the top spot. Ifeyanyi Edochie scored a pair big freshman win by beating out teammate and co-captain Khalil Uqdah in the 60 meters with a time of 7.19 – the Lehigh men took the top five spots in the 60 meters – and followed that up by beating out fellow freshman Nicholas Alakel for the top spot in the 200 with a 23.73 finish.
The men also got wins from Nick Ray in the shot put, James Pachucki in the javelin, Kyle O’Connor in the 1000, Khalil Uqdah in the pole vault and both the 4x400 and 4x800 teams.
On the women’s side, Lehigh enjoyed similar success, earning five individual titles including the 4X800 relay. Latasha Watson edged out Symonne Scott by .01 with a time of 26.69 for the 200 meter crown. Sarah Serwo combined with Jen Therkorn and freshman Alex Neville to take the top three spots in the 800 meters. Neville’s performance enhanced Utesch’s excitement with the freshman class again, even though she didn’t win the title.
“She finished just behind to great seniors for us,” Utesch said. “She was right on their tails, so that torch is going to be passed on to her.”
Lehigh also got wins from Theresa Fromm in the 60 meter hurdles, and Catherine Bigelow, who set a personal best of 1.60 meters in the high jump.
And it wasn’t just the good results that made Utesch happy with his team’s performance. Sure, it was great to see his young athletes competing successfully at such a high level, but the real importance was seeing them execute the way they were coached. That shows, Utesch said, that they are coachable athletes.
Utesch said that desire to be coached was exhibited in Neville’s third-place run in the 800.
“She ran a real smart 800,” Utesch said. “There was a girl coming up to pass her, and she let her get about to her hip before she just turned it on. That’s something that a lot of times we have to teach juniors and seniors to do. She just had that intuition to shut the door, and that was it.”
The Mountain Hawks will jump back into a long break now, as they do not return to the track and field until Jan. 10, when they travel to the Penn State Invitaitonal .
