In a field consisting of 10 of the best track and field colleges in the Northeast, UConn performed exceptionally well in both the track events and the field events. Some of the top teams in the invitational included Cornell, Harvard, Penn State, Princeton, Virginia and Big East foe Villanova.
The action began on Saturday with the women’s weight throw, where Natalia Surdej earned a third-place finish. The senior’s best throw traveled almost 61 feet. Emily Alty rounded out the top 10 with a throw of 54.5 feet.
The men’s competition began in the high jump with Dar Jankovic finishing second out of 10 competitors. Jankovic and Robert Allen of Penn State both jumped 6 feet 8.75 inches. However, the Husky did it in fewer attempts than the Nittany Lion. Connecticut also had Enaji Muhammad and Kasey Savage jump 6 feet 6.75 inches. These jumps were good for a fourth-place finish for Muhammad and a sixth-place finish for Savage.
In the women’s long jump, A’liyah Thomas jumped 19 feet 9.5 inches, just shy of the top two. Sophomore Audrey Kozak finished in 12th place with a top jump of 17 feet 8 inches. Thomas also participated in the 60-meter hurdles, where she qualified for the finals. The senior finished fifth in a very competitive final heat.
Kyle Johnson was a quarter of an inch short of a first-place finish in triple jump. Johnson’s 49 feet 8.25 inches was just shy of Caleb Holman of Virginia. The sophomore also finished seventh in the long jump.
Jenna Zydanowicz got the action on the track started for the Huskies with a third-place finish in the women’s one-mile. The senior had a time of 4:38.3, good for the 30th best time in all of Division 1 track and field this season. The West Hartford native is also chasing the school record in what could be her last campaign in a Connecticut uniform. Zydanowicz’s time on Saturday is second all-time behind her former teammate, Mia Nahom, who ran 4:35.27 in 2022.
UConn’s Terrel Williams wiped away the competition in both the prelims and finals of the men’s 60-meter hurdles. Williams improved on his 7.79 preliminary time by completing the finals in just 7.72 seconds. Jaia James finished fourth in the prelims and finals of the women’s 60-meter dash. The junior was just five-1000ths of a second behind Cornell’s Jada Smith for third place. James also participated in the 200-meter dash where she placed 15th.
The men’s team was all over the leaderboard in the long jump. Marc Morrison jumped nearly 26 feet, smashing the meet record and giving him the fourth best jump in Division 1 competition this year. This jump also gave Morrison the school record for the farthest long jump ever, which is a very coveted record for a program that has been around since the 1970s. Two spots behind Morrison was Savage, who also broke the meet record, jumping almost 25 feet. Savage’s jump got him inside of the top 10 in school history as well, ranking eight. Also competing for the Huskies was William Wiafe who finished in a solid 11th place.
More meet records were toppled by Connecticut, this time in the men’s 400-meter. Both Mekhi Stone and Orenthal Singletary broke the meet record of 47.95 seconds. Stone finished in third with a time of 47.6, good for seventh all-time in UConn history, while Singletary was seventh, clocking in at 47.81 seconds. The duo returned for the 4×400-meter relay, joined by Del Lindsay and Gabriel Cuffey. In a highly competitive field, the men’s team grabbed a seventh-place finish, right behind Penn State and Villanova. All four runners went under 50 seconds in their leg of the relay, an incredibly impressive feat considering each one of them competed in a race prior to the relay.
Wrapping up the competition in the men’s 800-meter, Mahamed Sharif fell a hair short of first place behind Princeton’s Samuel Rodman. Sharif’s time of 1 minute and 49 seconds also barely places him outside of the top 25 best in Division 1 this season.
UConn’s next meet will be at Boston University on Friday, Jan. 31. They will be competing in the John Thomas Terrier Classic. The Huskies immediately follow that up on Feb. 1, as they host the Coach Greg Roy-al Rumble in Storrs, Conn. For live tracking of these events, live.athletic.net will have up to the minute results of the action.