Men's T&F Wraps Up Competition at NEC Indoor Championships

Sunday, February 18

Ocean Breeze Track & Field Center / Staten Island, N.Y.

Sacred Heart University Department of Athletics

Northeast Conference Indoor Track & Field Championships

Photo by: Steve McLaughlin

Men's T&F Wraps Up Competition at NEC Indoor Championships

2/19/2024 6:55:00 PM | Men's Track and Field

Mahario claims 400m gold with school record

By: Cameron McClarren

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Rafael Mahario's gold medal in the 400 meter dash highlighted a successful two days of competition as the Sacred Heart University men's track and field squad took home a respectable sixth-place finish at the Northeast Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships on Monday afternoon.

The Pioneers earned 43 points across the two-day meet with a third of those points coming from the sprints cohort. Following prelims on Sunday afternoon, the Pioneers had two sprinters claim top-eight finishes, highlighted by Mahario's win in the 400 meter dash, blazing by the competition and setting a new school record with a time of 47.33. Mahario previously broke the school record earlier this season in the 400m at the Suffolk University Ice Breaker Invitational on Jan. 13.

Mahario followed up his record-breaking performance in the 400m with a respectable fifth place finish in the 200m, finishing with an IC4A qualifying time of 21.97 seconds. Elsewhere in sprints, first year Jacob Strain took seventh in the 500m dash, narrowly missing his personal-best time by two-hundredths of a second, finishing in 1:06.91 seconds to round out SHU's points in sprints.

SHU had strong showings elsewhere in the field events as Daniel Blatman took the lone medal in throws, earning the silver medal in weight throw after setting a mark of 17.30m on his fifth attempt. Meanwhile, in shot put, Aidan Glennon finished with a respectable sixth-place honor, setting a new personal-best of 14.11m on his fourth attempt.

The Red & White competed hard in jumps but could only land two athletes inside a competitive top-eight jumpers with Joshua Sanders and Benjamin Healy finishing in sixth and seventh in the men's long jump, respectively, to earn SHU's lone points in the event group.

The Pios finished off the remainder of the meet on the track taking 13 points from the remaining running events. Damon Wilson grabbed a seventh-place finish in the 60m hurdles, finishing with a time of nine seconds while in distance, graduate Edward Tristine took seventh place in the men's mile, finishing with a time of 4:16.44.

Ending the day with relays, the Pios just missed out on a podium placement in the 4x400m, taking fourth place with an IC4A qualifying time of 3:20.93 with the quartet of Mahario, Sanders, Alexander Rotondi and Dominic Miele. SHU followed the 4x400 with an impressive go in the distance medley relay, taking fifth place as the squad of Tristine, Douglas Suter, Patrick Curreri and Michael Mason finished in 10:19.01 to conclude the two-day meet.

Up Next:
The Pioneers will take a short break before heading back onto the track as part of a two-meet weekend at the ECAC/IC4A Indoor T&F Championships from March 1-3, and the New England Intercollegiate Indoor T&F Championships on March 1-2. More information can be found at sacredheartpioneers.com.