Two Plattsburgh State track and field team members swept the SUNYAC Track Athlete of the Week honors as both the men and women finished near the top of the Saints Twilight Invitational last Saturday.
Junior Brian Fabian and sophomore Elisabeth Plympton won the conference honors, as the men took third place out of seven teams, and the women took second out of seven.
“We did pretty well as a team as we tune up for the conference championship,” said Nicholas Jones, head coach. “We had some season’s bests, some personal bests, and we put ourselves in a decent position heading into conference.”
Fabian won the 800-meter and was a member of the winning 4×100 team en route to his first SUNYAC weekly honor win, while Plympton won it for the second week in a row after winning both the 100 and 200-meter dash.
“I thought it was pretty cool that we both won,” Fabian said. “It was my first time winning it, so it was cool to get to win with her.”
Jones was proud of his athletes’ accolades and what they mean for the program.
“This is the first time in a long time that we’ve had the SUNYAC Athlete of the Week on both sides in a long time,” Jones said. “We’re getting that award consistently with a few athletes, and it should only help us moving forward with confidence and getting better and better each year.”
Other strong finishers for the women on the track included sophomore Marissa Jones winning the 400-meter with a 59.62 second time, freshman Jackie Corbett winning the 3000-meter steeplechase with a 11:44.47 time, and freshman Janyll Barber winning the triple-jump, leaping 34’ 7”.
Senior Heather Chapman and sophomore Brianna Coon led the way in the throwing events with Chapman winning the discus, taking second in the shot put and fourth in the hammer throw and Coon taking the top spot in shot put and second in the hammer throw.
Seniors Sobaan Ayub and Zach Grandy and freshman Jordan Kane joined Fabian as members of the 4×100 team that took first on the men’s side, with the group running a 44.58 second time.
Kane also won the 110-meter hurdles with a 15.54-second time, freshman Brendon Van Vlack finished second in the 3000-meter steeplechase and the 4×800 relay team finished third. The team of Freshman brothers Andrew and Arthur Horan, freshman Luke Groves and junior Adam Whitehead combined to run an 8:35.20 time.
Next up on the schedule for the Cardinals is the State University of New York Athletic Conference Championships today and tomorrow at SUNY Geneseo.
With roughly 40 athletes qualifying for the meet, PSUC will be heading to the conference meet with a bigger group than usual.
“We’re pretty closely split between men and women, though there are a few more women, but it’s pretty good,” Nicholas Jones said. “We’re going to get close to filling a bus, so we’re happy about that. It’s definitely a positive trend in the right direction, qualifying a lot of people for SUNYACs.”
Fabian was happy that the men could rebound from earlier in the year.
“It’s good that we have some more men going because for indoor we were slacking a little bit,” Fabian said. “We have more people going, it’ll be better competition. Hopefully we’ll do better than we did in indoor.”
Jones understood that his team has done all it can, and now it just needs to compete.
“We’re ready to go, the hay is in the barn, as I like to put it,” Jones said. “We just need to stay healthy and perform when our chance comes.”
Email Ben Watson at cp@cardinalpointsonline.com
