Lehigh Men Set to Begin Indoor Track Season

Friday, December 4

Rauch Fieldhouse

5PM | ALL DAY

Lehigh University

Fast Times Meet

12/3/2015 4:24:00 PM | Men's Track and Field

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - The Lehigh men's track and field team will kick off its indoor season this Friday afternoon when the team will host the annual Lehigh Fast Times Before Finals meet at Rauch Fieldhouse.

"It's been going great," 18th year head coach Matt Utesch said of the preseason. "We're fairly healthy and are excited about our first meet coming up here."

"Preseason is a process," said senior Robert Hugin. "We started with the tough workouts in September and they continued through November before we moved indoors to get ready for the season. We have a lot of great pieces. We have Trevor Knowles, a Patriot League champion last year in the heptathlon and decathlon, and Adeolu Adesida who has won countless Patriot League Championships as well. There's a lot of veterans who can score a lot of points for us."

Lehigh is coming off a pair of fifth place finishes at both the Patriot League Indoor and Outdoor Championships last season. The Mountain Hawks return Knowles from last year's team, where he was named the Rookie of the Meet at both the indoor and outdoor Patriot League championships after taking home first place in the heptathlon and decathlon, respectively. Grad student Adeolu Adesida also claimed a league championship in the high jump. Lehigh also amassed three second place finishes from departed senior Derek Gaul (long jump), current junior Daniel Reichenbach (triple jump) and the 4x400 meter relay team.

"Dan Reichenbach has done a great job with leadership so far in the preseason, making sure everyone is doing things the right way," Utesch added. "We have our cross country guys back. I think they're still pretty hungry and think maybe they're gonna exact a little revenge on the track."

Several cross country members return to the track after placing fourth at the Patriot League Championships this fall, including Second Team All-League honoree Patrick Reilly.

A number of other returners also had success scoring at last year's indoor championships including Christopher Del Rossi in the 400 meter dash, Fritz Isaac in the 60 meter hurdles and triple jump, and junior Daniel Boardman placed fourth in the high jump and seventh in the long jump. Senior Tyler John also registered points in the pole vault and junior Lucas Warning finished third in the shot put.

Lehigh will also welcome several newcomers into the fold this year that they hope will have an immediate influence.

"We have a pole vaulter Max Jordan," Utesch commented. "He's already jumping right at his personal best, so I think he's going to go a little bit higher than that this year. And there's Ryan Givens in the decathlon, long jump, high jump and pole vault. He's going to make an impact in all of those."

Senior thrower Christopher Foley will also return from a knee injury that forced him to miss the outdoor season last spring.

The Fast Times Meet gets underway at 5 p.m. on Friday afternoon and resumes on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. Field events are slated for a 10 a.m. start and track events will begin at noon. Complete meet information can be found here. Fans can also follow all the action with live results.

"There's sort of a new sense of focus and vision on the team this year. It's a good benchmark to see where everyone's at," Hugin added regarding the team's opening meet.

"We're very fortunate where we get to train almost the first semester and we get to have this one meet before we go into finals," Utesch said. "It's a good interruption in training and gives us a good barometer of where the team is going to be."