Tartans Hold Lead at UAA Outdoor Championships Following First Day

(NEW YORK, N.Y.) - The Carnegie Mellon University men's track and field team hold a two-point lead at the University Athletic Association Outdoor Championships following the first day of competition hosted by New York University at Randall Island's Icahn Stadium.

The first day was highlighted by two Tartan individual champions and a relay champion as juniors Josh Newby (Palo Alto, Calif./Palo Alto) and Zachary Erra-Hernandez (Las Cruces, N.M./Onate) defended their titles by winning the 3,000-meter steeplechase and the shot put, respectively, and the 4x800-meter relay team took first.

Newby won the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a career-best time of 9:06.32 which broke the meet record he set last year at the championships while Erra-Hernandez led a sweep of the shot put with a season-best mark of 16.34m. Following Erra-Hernandez in the shot put was junior Nathan Cheek (Lancaster, Ohio/Lancaster) with a mark of 14.35m and sophomore Gino Pilato (Greensburg, Pa./Hempfield Area) with a mark of 13.92m.

Erra-Hernadez set a career-best mark in the hammer throw, finishing second with a distance of 52.15m. Cheek picked up a third-place finish in the same event with a distance of 49.56m.

Freshman Marc-Daniel Julien (Skokie, Ill./Niles West), junior Mike Standish (Washington, Pa./Trinity), sophomore Thomas Vandenberg (Mamaroneck, N.Y./Mamaroneck) and sophomore Douglas O'Connell (Rye, N.Y./Fordham Prep) finished the 4x800 in 7:46.01, two seconds ahead of Brandeis University in second place.

Freshman Ben Neiman (Port Jefferson, N.Y./Earl L. Vandermeulen) scored points for the team in the long jump, finishing seventh with a career-best distance of 6.18m while sophomore Mike McDermott (Seekonk, Mass./La Salle Academy) tied a career-best in the pole vault, clearin 4.40m to finish sixth. Also earning points on Saturday was senior Billy Littlefield (Wellesley, Mass./Wellesley) as he finished eighth in the 10,000-meter run in 33:25.67.

In the preliminaries, Standish made the finals of the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 57.45, Nieman made the finals of the 110-meter hurdles after a career-best time of 15.77 and Vandenberg will race in the finals of the 800-meter run after finishing first in his heat in 1:53.88.

Senior Ben Nealy (Egg Harbor Twp., N.J./Egg Harbor Twp.) will race in the finals of the 400-meter dash while senior Noel Titus (Bronx, N.Y./Choate Rosemary Hall) will race in the finals of the 200-meter dash and 100-meter dash.

Sunday's final day of competition is set to start at 9:00 a.m. with the high jump and 10:20 a.m. with the 4x100m relay.