Knowles Grabs Two Wins as Lehigh Takes Second at Angry Birds Challenge

Saturday, January 13

Bethlehem, Pa.

All Day

Lehigh University

Angry Birds Challenge

Photo by: Don Paul

Knowles Grabs Two Wins as Lehigh Takes Second at Angry Birds Challenge

1/13/2018 6:28:00 PM | Men's Track and Field

Complete Results: TFRRS | PDF

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The Lehigh men's track and field team used four individual victories to take home a second place team finish on Saturday at the Angry Birds Challenge at Rauch Fieldhouse. Senior Trevor Knowles captured two wins in the 60m hurdles and the pole vault, and sophomores Matt Kravitz and Jeffrey Kirshenbaum took home wins in the 800m and 5,000m, respectively. The Mountain Hawks took home second place at the meet with 155 points. Monmouth collected 198 to take the top spot, with St. Joseph's (74) finishing third and Fairleigh Dickinson (51) in fourth. The Mountain Hawks also had three runner-up finishes and four third place finishes on the afternoon.

Knowles took the top spot in the 60m hurdles by crossing the finish line in 8.28 seconds, blowing past his previous PR of 8.40 that he had set last week at the Wagner Invitational. Sophomore Kyle Sult finished third in 8.67 to tie his PR. Freshman Samuel Tapera grabbed a new season-best in the finals of the 60m dash, crossing the line third in 7.03m. Teammate Michael Camera also qualified for the finals where he scored team points in seventh place. Camera also netted team points by leading LU in seventh place of the 200m. Emre Soybas led Lehigh in ninth place of the 400m run.

"Trevor has his sights set on a national qualifier spot indoors in the heptathlon," said head coach Matt Utesch. "It is marks like that will be the thing to put him into the stratosphere of hanging with the best decathletes in the country."

Kravitz broke the tape to win the 800m run with his time of 1:55.62. Following closely behind was teammate Kyle Kirk, who set a new PR of 1:56.78 to take second place. In the mile, junior Brian Arita placed seventh in 4:30.27 to lead Lehigh and Sean Brown added three team points in ninth place.

In the distance events, senior John Tolbert (8:37.68) captured second place in the 3,000m run with teammate Victor Yegon (8:41.30) smashing his PR by over seven seconds and finishing in third place.

Sophomore Jeffrey Kirshenbaum opened the day by beginning Lehigh's success in the sprint/mid-distance events by capturing first place in the 5,000m in 14:48.95 to earn nine team points. Grad student Alexander Fitzgerald finished third overall in 15:44.54 to also land on the podium.

"They ran really solid races and were in control for the entire race," Utesch said of Kravitz and Kirshenbaum. "I like it when our guys run in a place where we can take over the race at any point and win. If we can continue to do that as we move forward towards Patriots, we are going have a great showing at the championship meet."

For the second straight week, Givens won the high jump by clearing 2.00m, and also led the team with his 6.85m long jump. In addition to Knowles' 4.55m victory in the vault, Max Jordan captured third place to score points at 4.25m. Senior Michael Gooding led the way for the Brown and White in fourth place of the triple jump (13.84m).

In the throws, freshman Anastasios Mouzakis (16.88m) took runner-up and earned seven points in the weight throw, with freshman Riley LaRiviere taking sixth. Alexander Rodgers (14.89m) PR-ed by 46 centimeters to place sixth in the shot put.

Lehigh will compete once again at Rauch Fieldhouse next Saturday when they host the annual dual meet against rival Lafayette.

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