Miami track and field has officially fired out the starting blocks for the outdoor season with the Hurricane Invitational at Cobb Stadium.
Coming off a strong end to the indoor season with many making a push for deep postseason accomplishments, many of UM’s biggest names on the team sat out the event, but still throughout the weekend many Hurricanes shined with standout performances.
Friday was a day solely led by the field events and Miami topped the leaderboards all throughout, beginning with the hammer throw.
Following her impressive indoor season, ECU transfer Jocelyn Pringle made her outdoor debut with Miami in record fashion. With a throw of 62.35m Pringle entered school record books with the second best mark in school history and second place in the event. In the men’s, Desmond Coleman finished top three in two of his events just shy of a career best in the hammer throw at 59.34, good for third place, and a second place spot in the discus at 54.14m.
As for the jumpers, Miami has a new pole vaulter in junior Payton Serraglio and she made a big time debut for the Canes.
Clearing 3.65m, she took first place on the day and entered into fourth all time in the event for Miami. In the women’s long jump, Miami took the top two spots. Sophomore Jovana Micic had a 5.89m mark to take first place and Dominique Johnson followed her up at 5.76m. And with the men, grad transfer from Boston University Steven Franco took second place, but first among college competitors at 6.99m
Moving over to Saturday, the Hurricanes continued to make strides and take some victories.
Early in the day the men’s 4x100m team with Ashton Torns, Caine Stanley, Carter Cukerstein and Dylan Woodruffe took first place with a time of 39.82 seconds. That entered the group into fourth all-time in the event.
It wasn’t Cukerstein and Torns’ only placement in the top five, the two were a part of the Hurricanes first and third best times in the event both set during last year’s outdoor season.
Torns also went stride for stride with Olympic Gold Medalist Steven Gardiner in the 100m narrowly finishing in second with a time of 10.50 to Gardiner’s 10.36. Right behind the two of them was freshman Tristen Washington making his debut for the Canes at 10.64.
Over for the women’s hurdles, Miami claimed the top spots in both 100m and the 400m.
In the 100m hurdles, sophomore Brittney Jennings took first place with a time of 13.52 as part of a Hurricane podium sweep.
Jennings was joined on the podium by freshman spring enrollee Zuzanna Zajac and sophomore Morgan Roundtree took second and third right behind her in the finals. Roundtree made her way back to the track for the 400m hurdles and dominated, her time of 1:02.07 was two seconds faster than the rest of her competition.
Rounding out the highlight performances of the weekend on the track, Robert Rimmel took the men’s 1500m with a time of 3:57.41, Robert Joseph held second place in the 400m at 48.72s, and Dylan Woodruffe returned to the track with a second place finish in the 200m at 21.12s.
Miami had a few more standouts over in the field on Saturday as well.
Just like the long jump, Miami went 1-2 in the triple jump. Latvian freshman Adrianna Kruzmane placed first with a mark at 13.16m and Dominique Johnson took second at 12.72m. In the high jump junior Magadine Campo took first place at 1.76m. Finally, freshman Lauren Kriby placed second in the women’s shot put at 15.85m.
As the season goes on Miami’s standouts that made it to ACC and the Indoor National Championships should return next week.
Miami will stay home and welcome runners to the Hurricane Collegiate Invitational the March 27-28.