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Lucas Warning
Photo by: Don Paul

Warning Shatters Decades-Old Record as Lehigh Competes in Trio of Meets

4/22/2017 9:55:00 PM | Men's Track and Field

Complete Results
 
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – In the spring of 1972, John Hill set the Lehigh outdoor shot put record of 18.31 meters. After 45 years of standing as the shot putting benchmark in the Lehigh men's track and field program, senior Lucas Warning made history on Friday evening by demolishing Hill's mark with his shot put of 18.72 meters at the Virginia Challenge. The mark ranks 11th among NCAA East Region qualifiers and is 21st in the entire nation through Saturday. The toss also increases his stranglehold on the top throw in the Patriot League this outdoor season, putting him 16 centimeters ahead of the next closest qualifier. The mark also smashed his previous personal record by 47 centimeters. Hill's record from 1972 had been tied for the oldest remaining track and field record still on the books at Lehigh.
 
Warning placed fifth overall in the shot put invite on Friday, competing alongside some of the best shot putters in the nation, including the reigning national champion Filip Mihaljevic (Virginia) and All-American Oghenakpobo Efekoro (Virginia).
 
"It's amazing," said head coach Matt Utesch. "I figured he would break it at some point, but I didn't think he'd put out that kind of a mark, and I think he has more in him. He did it against a strong field that had the reigning national champion and two guys who threw over 20 meters. It's the best completion you'll find short of the NCAA championships."
 
Warning is also the school's indoor shot put record holder (18.25m), a title he also took from Hill in January 2016.
 
"The reality is he realizes that he's undersized," Utesch said. "However he's maximizing his technique and making his body into a catapult and that's what you have to do to compete."
 
The Mountain Hawks also had athletes competing at two other meets on Friday and Saturday, including the Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton. There, Michael Camera ran a season-best 100m dash time of 11.18 seconds to place 23rd overall. Emre Soybas led the team in 12th place (22.27) of the 200m dash and sophomore Clay Stabolepszy finished 10th in the 800m run. Matt Kravitz (3:59.36) and Ryan Cooney (3:59.69) finished back-to-back in fifth and sixth places, respectively in the 1500m run.
 
In Friday night's 5K, Lehigh had a trio of runners place in the top half of the field, led by Alexander Fitzgerald in 18th place (14:33.23), followed by Evan Hardy in 23rd (14:34.55) and grad student Sean Burke, who placed 27th in PR time of 14:37.60.
 
In the field events, Ryan Givens notched ninth place in the high jump, just missing the two-meter mark with a final jump of 1.99m. Givens also led the Brown and White in the long jump, placing eighth at 6.80m. Senior Daniel Reichenbach also took part in the long jump, tying for ninth overall at 6.75m and freshman Oluwajuwon Owolabi triple jumped his way to a ninth place finish of 13.44m.
 
Freshman Kyle Sult placed 12th in the javelin and Christopher Foley threw 15.19m for 12th place in the shot put.
 
The Mountain Hawks were also represented at the All-American Meet at East Stroudsburg on Saturday, where senior Tom Troxell finished fourth out of 21 runners in the 400m hurdles, crossing the finish line in 56.96 seconds.
 
The Mountain Hawks will have select athletes competing this coming week at the Penn Relays, before hosting the Lehigh Games next Saturday at the Goodman Campus.
 
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Players Mentioned

Distance
/ Men's Track and Field
Jumps/Sprints
/ Men's Track and Field
Distance
/ Men's Track and Field
Distance
/ Men's Track and Field
Throws
/ Men's Track and Field
Jumps/Hurdles
/ Men's Track and Field
Distance
/ Men's Track and Field
Distance
/ Men's Track and Field
Jumps
/ Men's Track and Field
Jumps
/ Men's Track and Field
Sprints
/ Men's Track and Field
Sprint/Mid-Distance
/ Men's Track and Field
Multi/Hurdles
/ Men's Track and Field
Sprints
/ Men's Track and Field
Throws
/ Men's Track and Field
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