BRIDGEWATER, Mass. —— The Massasoit men's and women's track & field teams put on an impressive showing in their season opening meet at the BSU Bears Invitational, Saturday at Bridgewater State University. The Warriors totaled five NJCAA National cut times, four school records and seven individual top 10 finishes to highlight the opener.
"It was a great first meet for us today, despite some really cold conditions," head coach Matt Jordan said. "We made some qualifying cuts and set some school records, which was great to see.
"Today was also great just to see where we stack up as a measuring stick against other schools and gives us something to work on to improve moving forward. I think our times and distances will definitely get better as it warms up."
For the women, Karylvelle Ladoucer (Winter Park, Fla.) showed off her lightning speed, qualifying for Nationals in both the 100-meter (13.20) and 200-meter (27.66) races placing seventh and sixth in each, respectively. In addition, the true freshman set school records in both races in her first collegiate meet for the Warriors.
On the men's side, Mitchell Vaughn (Kingston) set a personal-best in the high jump, leaping his way to a height of 1.78 meters (5-10), which qualified the sophomore for Nationals. Vaughn finished third overall in the event. He also placed 10th in the 110-meter hurdles in 19.28.
Another individual qualifying effort came from Liam Brennan (Middleboro) in the 110-meter hurdles. The freshman posted a school-record and National cut time of 17.77 to place eighth overall on Saturday.
To go along with the four individual NJCAA National qualifying efforts by the Warriors, was the men's 4x100 relay squad of Liam Brennan, Tevon Springer (Sharon), Justin Bean (Foxboro) and Nick Vaughn (Kingston), clocking a fourth place time of 46.18.
Individually, Nick Vaughn continued his impressive showings in the sprint events, as the sophomore placed fourth in the 100-meter (11.47) and 11th in the 200-meter (23.59).
For the throwing events, Aaron Prescott (Carver) rocketed the discuss to a school-record distance of 33.03 meters (108-4) to place ninth at the meet and just seven inches short of the National qualifying length.
In addition for the women, Deja Houston (Taunton) also broke the school record in the 100-meter dash joining teammate Ladoucer. Houston finished the race in 15 seconds flat.
The Warriors return to the track on Saturday, April 2 to take part in the Jim Sheehan Memorial Meet hosted by Fitchburg State.