Lehigh Collects 17 Podium Finishes at Monmouth Season Opener

Friday, March 27

West Long Branch, NJ

Lehigh University

Monmouth Season Opener

Photo by: Don Paul

Lehigh Collects 17 Podium Finishes at Monmouth Season Opener

3/28/2026 6:53:00 PM | Men's Track and Field

Results

WEST LONG BRANCH, N.J - Lehigh traveled to the Jersey Shore to compete at the Monmouth Season Opener for a two-day meet on Friday and Saturday.

The hammer and discus throws started off the meet on day one. Christian Saparata threw 53.29 meters for his first collegiate hammer throw mark. The first-year finished as the runner-up, and his mark makes him Lehigh's eighth best hammer thrower in team history. Joseph Nowakoswki also threw a personal best as Lehigh's top discus thrower. He tossed the disc 43.23 meters, landing him in sixth. Adam Klinge took eighth in the event, throwing 41.75 meters.

Success in the throwing events continued throughout day two of the meet. Nowakoski followed up his discus performance by winning the shot put by throwing 15.68 meters. Aaron Lee made the podium in the javelin throw. The sophomore launched the javelin 51.54 meters on his final throw to move up to third.

Jaden Ferguson put up a pair of runner-up performances in the long and high jumps. The sophomore cleared 6.64 meters in the long jump, and 1.95 meters in the high jump. Tied with Ferguson was Nic Rossi, who topped out at the same height. Konstantinos Panagopoulos came away with two third place finishes in the horizontal jumping events. The first-year placed just behind Ferguson in the long jump, traveling 6.56 meters. He jumped 13.06 meters in his final attempt in the triple jump, which moved him onto the podium. He placed under Daniel Givens, who was the runner-up with a 13.40 meter leap.

Lehigh took the top two spots on the pole vault leaderboard. Eli Johnson earned gold with a massive personal best. The junior cleared the 4.80 meter bar for the first time, which was a quarter of a meter higher than he has ever jumped outdoors. He now sits at seventh on lehigh's all-time performance list. Sayyidakbar Akbarov took second, jumping an outdoor personal best of 4.50 meters.

Connor Malinger and Derek Coceano opened the events on the track with top two finishes in the 3000 meter steeplechase. Both men set new personal records by less than a second, with Malinger winning the race in 9:30.26 and Coceano ran 9:31.24 to finish as the runner-up.

Alex Heidemann finished second in the 1500 meter run, leading a group of three Mountain Hawks to top 10 finishes. The senior ran 4:00.68, Ben Connell crossed the line in 4:03.45 to finish sixth, and Max Leffler placed ninth by running a four second personal best in 4:04.95.

Nic Bressi placed third in the 400 meter hurdles. The sophomore ran 55.80 in his debut in the event. Cole Swick also placed third in his event debut. The first-year ran 21.90 in his first outdoor 200 meter dash in college.

Lehigh had two top 10 finishers in the 800 meter run. Dan Malatesta finished fourth and ran 1:55.12, a personal record by a tenth of a second. Peter Pristner ran 1:57.29, finishing ninth.

The Mountain Hawks finished in the top five for both relay events. The team of Swick, Aidan LaTourette, Aiden DiBuono, and Griffin Niemann ran 3:22.57 as the runner-up team in the 4x400 meter relay. In the 4x100 meter relay, Swick, DiBuono, Austin Iburg, and Eddie Moore finished fourth running 43.25.

Lehigh heads back to the Garden State next week for the Princeton Invitational on Saturday, April 4.