Lehigh Resumes Competition at Wagner Invitational

Friday, January 5

Staten Island, N.Y.

All Day

Lehigh University

Wagner Invitational

Lehigh Resumes Competition at Wagner Invitational

1/5/2018 10:49:00 PM | Men's Track and Field

Complete Results (TFRRS)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – Ryan Givens took home an individual title while Trevor Knowles and Jeffrey Kirshenbaum added third place finishes for the Lehigh men's track and field team on Friday at the Wagner Invitational, the team's first meet after the holiday break. The team featured mostly throwers, jumpers, and a crop of mid-distance runners who competed for the first time since the cross country season.

After finishing third in the prelims of the 60m hurdles in 8.41 seconds, Knowles improved and powered his way to a new PR performance of 8.40 seconds in the finals, landing him on the podium in third place.

"The impressive thing with Trevor is that event requires a lot of rhythm," head coach Matt Utesch said. "He didn't lose any rhythm and he got better. He worked on that over the break on campus, but it's a different thing being in competition and he did a great job stepping up today."

The Mountain Hawks had several strong showings in the mile, led by Matt Kravitz who finished fifth overall out of 72 finishers in 4:16.65. Senior John Tolbert (4:18.58) placed seventh and Ryan Grace (4:18.72) followed in eighth, making Lehigh the only school to have more than two top-10 finishers. Kyle Kirk (21st/4:25.48) and Samuel Layding (27th/4:29.15) both set new collegiate PR's in the mile.

Jeffrey Kirshenbaum nailed down a podium finish with a new personal record in the 3,000m run, crossing the line in 8:30.57, followed by freshman Seth Slavin who made his collegiate 3K debut with a seventh place time of 8:45.09.

"I'm very happy to see them start with a bang," Utesch said. Today was a meet where we were trying to knock some rust off from the long break, so to have them run that fast is pretty encouraging."

Also on the track, David Fletcher (21st/2:00.13) and James Chappell (24th/2:00.41) both finished in the top half of the 800m run.

Over in the field events, Givens topped the field of over 20 competitors to win the high jump by clearing 2.00 meters. Joey Kelly cleared the bar at 4.30 meters to take home fifth place in the vault, and the freshman duo of Matt Solomon (6.55m) and Justin Brown (6.52m) finished tied for seventh and tied for ninth, respectively, in the long jump. Senior Michael Gooding cracked the top five of the triple jump with his fourth place leap of 14.11m.

"Ryan was a little rusty and was still able to clear two meters, which just shows how much more he has in him," Utesch said.

In the throws, junior Alexander Rogers paced Lehigh with an 11th place shot put of 13.89m and freshman Anastasios Mouzakis finished fourth out of 42 in the weight throw at 16.01 meters.

"He's a strong kid," Utesch said. "He's starting to work hard too and realize just how good he is and what he could do. It's starting to pay off in meets and is really exciting."

Next up, the Mountain Hawks will host the Angry Birds Invitational next Saturday, Jan.13 at Rauch Fieldhouse.

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