In a photo from a meeting in April of 2016, the track team competes in an event during the Spring portion of last year’s schedule. (Amar Batra/The Daily Campus)
Coming off a hot start, the Huskies flame petered out at the Sorlien Invitational at the University of Rhode Island on Saturday. After a first place finish at the Great Dane Classic last week, coupled with Jordan Torney coming in second place at the URI Heptathlon, it seemed that nothing could halt the Huskies’ start to the season. However the Sorlien Invitational provided adversity and competition that had not been faced thus far this season.
At URI the Huskies would end up finishing in second place, coming behind the host school, the URI Rams. URI would defeat the Huskies by a slim 15 points; Providence would come in third place over 100 points behind UConn. The Rams provided quality competition for a UConn team that was coming into the day understanding that they would be shorthanded.
If there was one mantra to describe the mentality of the team going into Sorlien it would have been “Next Man Up”. Without a lot of their regulars in attendance, UConn needed to ask athletes to step-up that normally would not have to. In the end, they did not have enough fire power to come away with the first-place finish, however there were some individual performances that would become the bright spots of the weekend. In the pole vault, senior captain Craig Hunter, for the second straight week, took first place in pole vault. Other UConn Athletes that took home first-place finishes this week include Chris Heydrick in the 800-meter dash, Stephon Henry in the 60 meter hurdles, and Kyle Trocki in the 500-meter dash, which was his first collegiate win in his young career. All silver linings for the Huskies in a team result that most would call disappointing.
Looking ahead UConn travels to New York City to participate in the Big Apple Challenge starting this Friday carrying through Saturday, January 27 – 28.
Kenny Beardsley is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at kenneth.beardsley_iii@uconn.edu.
