COLLEGEVILLE, PA – Two new University of Rochester men's track and field records were set on Wednesday at the All-Atlantic Region Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Ursinus College.
 
First-year Barack Abdallah had a hand in both records, as the rookie sprinted to a new individual record in the 100 meters and joined Aadit Jain, Evan Bryant and William Stiska on the new record-breaking 4x100 meter relay squad.
 
Additionally, it was a solid day for the Yellowjackets in the team standings, with URochester ranking 6th after scoring 18.5 points on the opening day of competition. After eight of 22 total events have been completed, a total of 32 teams scored in the meet.
 
The 4x100 meter relay team started things off on the afternoon, running to a new team-best time of 41.82 seconds, finishing tenth overall in the race. The 2026 group breaks the previous school record of 42.08 seconds set by Bryant, P.J. London, Mitch Lienert and Manny Eribo back in 2024.
 

Later on, Abdallah sprinted to a 10.73 second time in the 100 meter preliminaries, eclipsing his own school record, set earlier this season, by one-hundredth of a second. The first-year qualified for the Thursday finals in fifth place.
 
During the two distance finals on Wednesday evening, the Yellowjackets earned a pair of runner-up finishes from sophomore's Liam Sakakeeny and Joe Berry.
 
Sakakeeny was second in the 5000 meters, crossing the finish in 15:02.36, while Berry ran the 10000 meters and matched his sophomore classmate as runner-up, crossing the finish in 32:02.37. Each scored eight points towards the Yellowjacket team total.
 
During the pole vault, first-year Brant Nicholls cleared 4.56 meters and ended in a tie for seventh place overall.
 
UR's other podium finisher on day one was junior Armaan Butler in the hammer throw. Butler made the top-9 finals and earned an eighth place finish with a toss of 54.52 meters, establishing a new personal-best.
 
Joining Butler in the hammer throw event were first-year's Ethan Kaufman and Alex Hermann. The pair finished 13th and 14th, respectively, posting distances just over 50 meters. Kaufman ended at 50.34 meters, while Hermann's mark was 50.01 meters.
 
In the long jump, junior Reward Mulauzi hit a new personal-best distance with a 6.85 meter leap, ending in 13th place. Jain also competed in the event and secured a 19th place result with a 6.63 meter mark.
 
In addition to Berry, William Eskenas also ran the 10000 meters and ended in 19th place in 33:36.67. Stiska also competed individually in the 100 meters and sprinted to a 10.95 second time in the prelims, ranking 22nd overall.
 
Junior Elijah VanHoover was the other Yellowjacket competitor on Wednesday, running the preliminaries of the 110 meter hurdles. VanHoover crossed the stripe in 15.49 seconds and placed 27th in the field.
 
Day one of the decathlon competition also took place and the three Yellowjacket competitors saw some success. Junior Ashton Tokarski sits in first place after five events with a score of 3,596 points, while sophomore Emmett Hansen is close behind in third, scoring 3,533 points on day one. Senior Jack Maness is ninth overall with 3,003 points.
 
Tokarski set four new personal-best's on the opening day leading to his solid score. The junior finished first in the 100 meters (11.13 seconds) and had four straight PR's to end the day, coming in the long jump (6.79 meters), shot put (10.98 meters), high jump (1.86 meters) and 400 meters (50.85 seconds). All of his finishes were in the top-4 amongst the decathletes.
 
For Hansen, three new PR's were established, with the sophomore ending first or second in four of the five day one events. Hansen started with a 11.30 second sprint in the 100 meters, good for second behind Tokarski. He followed that up with a PR of 6.80 meters in the long jump, placing first. After ending ninth in the shot put at 10.01 meters, Hansen was second-best in the field, and hit a lifetime best, in both the high jump (1.86 meters) and 400 meters (50.18 seconds) to end day one.
 
Day two action at Ursinus College begins at 10 am on Thursday.