NEW BRITAIN, Conn. — Wagner's men are holding a 41-point lead heading into championship Sunday of the NEC Outdoor Championships, hot off a Saturday where the team swept the day's four field event finals.
The Seahawks are leading the team standings with 79 points with good separation above second-place Saint Francis.
One field event dominated was the long jump, with junior Jack Mason setting a new event record with a 7.75m jump on just his second attempt of the day. His record breaks the NEC Championship record, previously set by Salif Mane of FDU in 2023. Junior Khalid Brown took second behind Mason, logging a 7.37m jump to finish 0.1m above FDU's Justice Hicks. Sophomore Ty Lawless took eighth place, posting a 6.88m jump.
Down the road competing with the throwers, senior Dario Sina de la Fuente took first in javelin with a 61.03m throw, good for gold on his first throw of the day. Senior Christopher Milillo took gold as well, winning hammer throw with a 61.20m throw in a heavy drizzle that made conditions tough for the entire field.
Senior Julio Martinez defended his pole vault title yet again, now with seven consecutive golds to his name across indoor and outdoor season. The senior cleared 4.65m to win the event, joined on the podium by senior Eskil Njerve, who cleared 4.45m. Sophomore Amir Shokry added a pair of team points, finishing seventh with a 4.20m clearance.
The day opened in dramatic fashion, with graduates Florian Hinry and Justin Morris finishing first and second in the 10,000m to open the meet. Sticking with Stonehill's Dylan Brilliant and CCSU's Mark Rodriguez for a majority of the race, Hinry and Morris held with the lead pack but did not make a move until the final lap of the race, when Hinry pushed hard in the straight to blow by the pack and Morris went with him.
Wagner's 4x800 relay team added four points, with sophomore Ignacio San Juan, junior Eric Marquez, junior Nigel Boboli and freshman James Torres running a 7:56.65 time.
Marquez finished sixth in the 1,500m preliminary with a 4:01.26 qualifying time. Competing in his second event of the day, Hinry also qualified for the 1,500m final with a 4:02.11 time.
Wagner puts four in the 100m final — freshman Noah Grant, senior Alex Taddeo, junior Jack Mason and junior Shawn Keegan. Grant and Taddeo earned automatic bids in each of their heats with 10.71 and 10.81 times, respectively, while Mason and Keegan qualified by time.
In the 400m preliminary, sophomore Julio Tatis ran a 48.73-second hear to take an automatic bid to the event finals. Tatis also qualified for the 200m, logging a 21.66-second preliminary time to qualify alongside Grant, who ran a 21.44-second heat. Taddeo joins the pair, running a 22.01-second heat.
Senior Dante Rodney carries a big to the 400m hurdles final with a 54.83-second preliminary time on Saturday.
Freshman Ersell McCullen, competing in his first outdoor season, finished 12th in the 110m hurdles with a 16.36-second time.
Sunday's will begin with men's triple jump at 9:30 a.m. EDT, then track events will kick off at 12:30 p.m. EDT with the steeplechase.
