A successful final day of competition at the Canadian Interuniversity Sport Track & Field Championships,Saturday, netted the York Lions five medals, including a gold by Kristen Matthews in the high jump.
Left: Matthews
Thanks to a leap of 1.80 metres, Matthews claimed York’s only gold medal of the three-day meet at McGill’s Richard Tomlinson Fieldhouse in Montreal, March8-10. She had previously won a silver medal in the event at the Ontario University Athletics Championship, Feb. 26.
Adding to the women’s medal haul was Sarah Katz, who collected one of York’s four bronze medals of the day. She finished third in the women’s 600 m in a time of 1:32.16.
In the women’s 4×400 m relay, Katz joined teammates Nicole Benjamin, Wendy Clarke and Kaitlin Coopman to capture another podium spot with a third-place finish. With Katz as the anchor, the team fell just six-one hundredths of a second short of second place, crossing the finish line with a time of 3:51.57.
On the men’s side, the 4×200 m relay team of Jared Lewis, Justin McLennan, Dennison Collins and anchor Randolph Fajardo scored bronze thanks to their time of 1:27.38.
Finally, Marlon Nangle bumped York’s medal total to six with his third-place finish in the men’s triple jump. Nangle, who entered the weekend’s competition as the top-ranked athlete in the event, registered a jump of 14.84 m in the final. York’s David St. Bernard finished ninth after his final jump of 14.05 m.
Also competing for York on Saturday was Paul Kosmas, who placed 13th in the men’s pole vault after recording a height of 4.15 m.
Overall, the men’s team finished in sixth with 36 points, while the women wound up 12th with 23 points. Both teams earned three medals each.
McLennan came up just short in his bid for a bronze medal for York in the 300 m as a result of coming up less than a thousandth of a second behind the third-place finisher. Both athletes clocked in at 34.38. York’s Dennison Collins finished in fifth with a time of 6.74, followed closely by teammates Jared Lewis in sixth (6.77) and Randolph Fajardo (6.86).
In his first year at York, McLennan’s consistent podium finishes earned him the top CIS ranking in the 60 m heading into the nationals. At the OUA Championship, the Brampton native earned a trio of silver medals in the 60 m, the 4×200 m relay, and the 300 m.
Also finishing among the top five in their event was York’s Christopher Theriau, whose time of 8.27 was good for fourth in the men’s 60 m hurdles, just two-hundredths of a second shy of a podium spot.
In women’s action, York’s Heather Hamilton found herself tied with a pair of competitors for seventh spot in the pole vault, thanks to a leap of 3.45 m. Wendy Clarke was unable to progress past the preliminaries into the 300 m finals.
In men’s pentathlon action, York’s OUA gold-medalist Ben Krul was sitting in second place after three events, but had to retire due to a hamstring injury. Rookie Elijah Allen finished 11th with a score of 3,128 points.
This article was submitted to YFile by Ben Fisher, sport information assistant in York’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science in the Faculty of Health.