Rowan hosted the Oscar Moore Invitational this past Friday in more than challenging conditions. The day would prove to be an early indicator of the team’s status in the early portions of this spring season.

With a goal to maintain their elite status, the sprint team was unfazed by the cold temperature and rain with three spots in the top five. Atop this group was sophomore Julian Pratt, with a time of 11.18.

“This is one of the first times that I’ve ran a good time early in the season,” Pratt said. “I feel as if with practice and reputation, I can get my time down.”

Continuing with sprints, freshmen Spencer Jarrett and Dayquan Murray would battle through the tough headwind with Jarrett edging out the first of tight races Friday with his winning time of 22.21. Murray’s close second would land at 22.50.

The hurdle team was no different in Friday’s success. Taking the one and two spots in the 110 hurdles was the Prof’s Tyler Garland, with a time of 15.10, and John Nguyen at 15.82.

Senior Chris Mesiano would continue his impressive 400 hurdle campaign with a winning time of 56.29. Mesiano looks to rival the top spot this year and will have plenty of competition going forward.

“We are definitely trying to get guys to step up after the departure of Anthony Salemo and myself after this year,” Mesiano said. “It was usually just the two of us but this year we’ve got a lot more guys.”

Rowan would take the remaining two top three spots in the event.

The 800m race was dominated by seven Profs in the top eight spots. The race was highlighted by freshman Kevins Lauer’s 2:00:51, which looks to drop well below the 2-minute mark going forward.

A strong showing for the distance team also took first thanks to Kush Patel’s 9:00:14 first place finish.

In the field, sophomore Dan McAleavey’s mark of 183’ was enough to secure the top spot in the javelin, but sophomore Earnest Daniel would make his presence known in the triple jump, notching 42’8’’. He would also take second in the high jump, marking 6’2’’. In the long jump, freshman Rakim Coyle’s 21’2’’ jump landed him a second-place finish.

Early success is not always advantageous to a team and “peaking” too early can cause concern for the season going forward. However, with so many early national and regional qualifiers the week before, there may be more room for excitement going forward.

“Now we can work towards getting more people towards that [national/regional qualifiers] and prepare for both the regional and conference championships,” said head coach Dustin Dimit.

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