Tartans Place Second at UAA Outdoor Championships, Three UAA Titles on Day Two

(ST. LOUIS, Mo.) - The Carnegie Mellon University men's track and field team placed second at the University Athletic Association (UAA) Outdoor Championships on Sunday hosted by Washington University in St. Louis. The Tartans scored 202 points to finish behind WashuU with 207 points.

Graduate student Grant Johnson (Wilmette, Ill. / New Trier) won the 400-meter hurdles with a personal-best time of 53.70 finishing .63 seconds ahead of teammate sophomore Andrew McGovern (Lexington, Mass. / Lexington) who place second in 54.33. Sophomore Thomas Rich (Rochester, N.Y. / Brighton) crossed in a personal-best time of 55.77 to place fourth in the event. Rich also recorded a fifth place showing in the 110-meter hurdles with another personal-best time of 15.60.

Senior Justin Kiefel (Downingtown, Pa. / Downingtown STEM Academy) and graduate student Bram Miller (Colgate, Wis. / Kettle Moraine Lutheran) each won their second UAA title on Sunday. Kiefel won the triple jump with a mark of 14.73 meters while Miller took first in the discus with a throw of 47.79 meters.

In the triple jump, senior Varun Narayan (Princeton, N.J. / Princeton) took second with a personal best jump of 13.95 meters with freshmen Luke Blackwell (Doylestown, Pa. / Central Bucks East) and Sebastian Sanso (Santa Cruz, Calif. / Santa Cruz) placing fourth and eighth, respectively. Blackwell jumped 13.54 meters and Sanso 12.40 meters.

Junior Len Huang (Holmdel, N.J. / Holmdel) took third in the discus with a toss of 41.58 meters, as junior Bailey O'Malley (Pittsburgh, Pa. / Baldwin) placed seventh after marking at 38.69 meters.

The 1,500-meter run saw freshmen Aleksei Seletskiy (Palo Alto, Calif. / Palo Alto) and Colin McLaughlin (Stamford, Conn. / Westhill) finish second and fourth with personal-best times of 3:50.51 and 3:51.89.

Junior Alex Halkias (Berlin, Conn. / Berlin) recorded a third and fifth place finish in the 200-meter and 100-meter dash with time f 22.01 and 11.09. Senior Michael Cai (Dumont, N.J. / Bergen County Academies) crossed in a personal-best time of 49.98 to place fifth in the 400-meter run with sophomore Alex Ivanov (Newton, Mass. / Newton) placing seventh in the 800-meter run in 1:59.48,

After turning in a fourth-place finish in the steeplechase on day one, junior Elijah Sech (San Clemente, Calif. / San Clemente) placed third in the 5,000-meter run crossing in a personal-best time of 14:52.26.

In the high jump freshman Ethan Higgs (Evansville, Ind. / FJ Reitz), Sanso and Rich all cleared the bar at 1.80 meters and with the judges decision, Higgs placed fourth, Sanso fifth and Rich seventh.

The Tartans will compete at the Mountaineer Twilight and St. Francis (Pa.) Invitational on Saturday, April 30.