PITTSFORD, NY – In their first meet back from winter break, the University of Rochester men's track & field team posted the top-team score at Nazareth's Conference Challenge Cup on Saturday at the Golisano Training Center.
 
The 'Jackets totaled 124 points, 10 more than second-place finisher SUNY Cortland, while SUNY Geneseo finished third with 105 points. In terms of conference scoring, the Liberty League, UR and Ithaca, combined for the most points with 178, while the SUNYAC placed second with 115 and the Empire 8 tallied 131 for the third-most among the 10 teams from five conferences.
 
Four Yellowjackets finished atop the podium in their respective events, as Sean Hendricks won the 800 meters, Jordan Johnson finished atop the podium in the weight throw, Mitch Lienert took home first place in the 200 meters and Cody Reeth won the pole vault.
 
Hendricks and the Yellowjackets provided a clean sweep of the top-three spots in the 800 meters, as Hendricks crossed the finish line first with a 1:55.68-second time, while Brendan McCollum placed second with a time of 1:55.95, and Skye Crocker earned a third-place result, clocking in at 1:56.22. All three times surpassed the regional-qualifying mark, and also currently rank among the Top 25 on the NCAA Division III Indoor Qualifying List.
 
In the 200 meters, Lienert and second-place finisher Greg Palma both hit the All-Atlantic Region Indoor Track & Field Championships (AARTFC) qualifying mark, with Lienert finishing first with a time of 22.44 seconds, while Palma's time was 22.73 seconds.
 
Johnson scored an event win in the weight, hitting the AARTFC qualifying mark with a first-place throw of 17.66m, while Zajans Crapo also scored in the event, earning a seventh-place finish with a 15.21m throw.
 
Reeth then added UR's second event win in the field events, making it over the 4.45m height to win the competition, hit the AARTFC qualifying mark and notch the 37th-best pole vault height in DIII, while Emmett Hansen (5th, 4.15m) and Jack Maness (8th, 4.00m) also scored for UR.
 
In total, the Yellowjackets hit eight AARTFC qualifying marks and placed five times on the NCAA DIII Indoor qualifying list.
 
UR added two more regional marks in the long jump, while Manny Eribo notched a top-15 jump in DIII. Eribo paced five Yellowjackets in the top 10 of the event, with his 7.10m jump good for second, an AARTFC qualifier and the 13th-best mark in NCAA Division III so far this season.
 
Cole Goodman finished just behind Eribo in third with a 6.87m leap, another regional qualifier, while Austin Lansey (7th, 6.57m), Aadit Jain (9th, 6.37m) and Reward Mulauzi (10th, 6.35m) rounded out UR's top-five finishers, with both Jain and Mulauzi setting new personal-best leaps.
 
Jain was also Rochester's top finisher in the high jump, successfully making it over the 1.87m bar to finish third.
 
In the triple jump, Sam Lorenzetti scored UR's top spot with a fourth-place result, and earned an AARTFC qualifier with a 13.63m jump, with Mulauzi joining Lorenzetti in the top 10 with a sixth-place finish and 13.37m leap.
 
Elsewhere in the field events, Ethan Beer and Dylan Rykert both posted top-10 results in the shot put, with Beer finishing ninth (13.37m), while Rykert placed 10th (13.01m).
 
The Yellowjackets' final AARTFC qualifier of the day came in the 3,000 meters, where Vishal Yalamanchili ran to a second-place time of 8:43.04, a new personal best time. In addition to their eight AARTFC qualifiers, UR posted four first-place finishers, four second-place results and three third-place tallies.
 
UR's 4x200-meter relay of P.J. London, Lienert, Palma and Trevor Whitney got Rochester's day started on the track with a second-place finish, clocking in at 1:31.34.
 
Gabe Thyne was UR's top finisher in the 60-meter hurdle prelims, finishing 14th (8.87), while Lienert qualified for the 60-meter finals with a seventh-place finish and 7.12-second time in the prelims, before running 7.10 seconds in the finals to place fifth.
 
Two UR first-years then earned top-10 finishes in the mile, with Liam Sakakeeny finishing just ahead of Jacob Bernd, in eighth with a time of 4:25.072, while Bernd finished in ninth at 4:25.075.
 
In the 400 meters, Evan Bryant was UR's top finisher, placing 11th with a time of 51.75 seconds, while Bryant, along with Palma, Bernd and Hendricks, wrapped up the track events for UR with a fifth-place result in the 4x400-meter relay, clocking in at 3:29.67.
 
The Yellowjackets next compete at the RIT Indoor Invitational in Henrietta, NY on Thursday, Jan. 30 at 4:00 p.m.