Tartans Take Second to Close the 2014 UAA Championships
Posted: Apr 27, 2014

Tartans Take Second to Close the 2014 UAA Championships

(CHICAGO, Ill.) - The Carnegie Mellon University men's track and field team finished second scoring 166 total points during the two day University Athletic Association (UAA) Championship meet losing only to Washington University of St. Louis who won the meet with 211 points. The 2014 championships were hosted by the University of Chicago.

The Tartans continued to perform strong in the field on the second day of competition.

In the jumps, junior Mike McDermott (Seekonk, Mass./La Salle Academy) cleared the bar set at 1.89 meters for a seaon-best mark and second-place.

In the throws, the Tartans took second and third in both the discus and the javelin. Senior Nathan Cheek (Lancaster, Ohio/Lancaster) tossed a career-best 44.73 meters in the discus for second-place and another career-best in the javelin with a throw of 53.14 meters.  Senior Zachary Erra-Hernandez (Las Cruces, N.M./Onate) grabbed a third-place finish in the discus when he threw 44.32 meters.  For second-place in the javelin, freshman Jacob Brooks (Sherwood, Ore./Sherwood) heaved a throw of 53.38 meters.

Junior Thomas Vandenberg (Mamaroneck, N.Y./Mamaroneck) crossed the finish line of the 800-meter run with a time of 1:53.68 meters to take the first-place title in the event for the Tartans.

A quad of third-place finishes pushed the Tartans into a solid second place for the weekend.  In the 200-meter dash, freshman Andrew Chang (Fairfax, Va./W.T. Woodson) finished third with a time of 21.97.  In the 100-meter hurdles, sophomore Ben Neiman (Port Jefferson, N.Y/Earl L. Vandermeulen) crossed the finish line with a time of 15.59.  Senior Mike Standish (Washington, Pa./Trinity) finished the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 54.80.  Finally, the 4x400-meter relay team of Standish, Vandenberg, sophomore Marc-Daniel Julien (Skokie, Ill./Niles West) and freshman Owen Norley (Chagrin Falls, Ohio/Kenston) completed the race in third-place with 3:20.80.

The Tartans will now be heading into the post-season looking for some national qualifying marks.  With a weekend off, the team will then be travelling to Allegheny College on May 9 for the Gator Invitational.