GENESEO, NY – The Alfred University men's track & field team competed in its first large-scaled outdoor meet of the year as the Saxons surrounded themselves with personal bests at SUNY Geneseo, composed of teams from all divisions of the NCAA as well as NJCAA and JUCO institutions on Saturday.
 
The Saxons were led by no one and everyone as there were multiple Top-20 finishes across the board in both track and field events.
 
"The teams performed really well and we had so many personal-bests all around the track and in the field," Head Coach Dr. Angie Taylor said. "It was a very large meet with some incredible programs in attendance including schools from the D1 level. Today was our first real outdoor meet of the season as we had most of the team there and a lot of them were pretty close, if not farther, in terms of matching how the left last season so we are in a good place with our returners. Our new athletes had strong performances that fit well in the Empire 8 picture and we can build upon in the conference as well."
 
The Saxons sprinters had eight of the 14 Top-20 finishes with Steven Jackson (Culpeper, VA/Eastern View) leading the charge. He had the top finishes in both of his individual events and was part of the 4x100-meter relay team that finished third. He was the third leg of the relay, teaming with John Wendt (Lewiston, NY/Lewiston-Porter), Reign Peterson (Hastings-on-Hudson, NY/Hastings) and Papa Dioum (New York, NY/Frederick Douglas Academy) for a time of 44.56, just short of Alfred State College's second place time of 44.33.
 
Jackson finished 11^th, just missing finals of the 100-meter dash with a time of 11.67. Later in the meet, he ran a 23.91 for 14^th place in the 200-meter dash, edging out teammate, Dioum, and his time of 23.94 in 15^th place. Wendt followed in the 100 with a time of 11.70 for 14^th place with Dioum closing out the event with an 11.81 for 20^th place. Back in the 200, Steven Morrow (Dryden, NY/Dryden) followed Dioum and Jackson with a time of 24.04 for 17^th place and Noam Sokolovsky (East Lyme, CT/East Lyme) rounded it out with a 24^th place finish of 24.57 on Saturday.
 
Morrow and Sokolovsky kept the ball rolling with Top-20 finishes in the 400-meter dash as they took 13^th and 20^th, respectively. Morrow ran a 51.98 and Sokolovsky finished with a 53.03. Jordan Fixsen (Penfield, NY/Penfield) also stepped up in the event with a big PR, setting the new mark at 1:03.20.
 
Kalum Holbrook (Atlanta, NY/Wayland-Cohocton) and Nathaniel Marrero (Newport, NY/West Canada Valley) added two more Top-20's with Holbrook earning 13^th in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:04.15 while Marrero took 18^th in the event as well, fighting back from a second-to-last hurdle clip and fall to finish with a time of 1:20.68 in his first ever attempt in the 400-hurdles.
 
Chris Mayo (Wolcott, NY/North Rose-Wolcott) and Gavin Wilbert (Webster, NY/Webster Thomas) rounded out the Top-20 finishes on the track as the duo led a pack of Saxons in the 10,000-meter run. The AU runners ran in Assistant Coach and Head Cross Country Coach, Matt Phillips's '10 favorite style, pack-running. Mayo finished 18^th with a time of 35:54.17 while Wilbert was 20^th to lead the sweep of the next five placings, in a row. Kyle Jenkins (Marcellus, NY/West Genesee) finished 21^st, Kyle Full (Akron, NY/Akron) took 22^nd, Yuner Sesmas (Apollo, PA/Kiski Area) was 23^rd, George Mecca (Derby, NY/Eden) earned 24^th and Kevin Flint (Caledonia, NY/Caledonia-Mumford) rounded out at 25^th place.
 
Marrero added the last Top-20 finish for Alfred University in the final event of the night, as athletes and event-organizers rushed to beat out the sunset and to get the competitors out of the cold that had blanketed the area. Marrero had a 13-meter personal best in the javelin, throwing a distance of 36.66m for 18^th place. Marrero was followed by Holbrook, establishing a personal record of his own with a distance of 33.24m on Saturday night for 25^th place.
 
Andrew Parnapy (Byron, NY/Byron-Bergen) added two big performances of his own in the throwing events on Saturday, wrapping up the stand-out performance by the Saxons. In just his second collegiate outdoor meet, Parnapy smashed his personal best in the shot put by over four feet, recording a distance of 10.94m and defeated half of the field of 44 throwers, taking 22^nd. He established his discus personal best distance at 22.08m, once again defeating over half of the field of 52 throwers as he took 21^st place.
 
The Saxon men's throwers will return to SUNY Geneseo on Sunday to compete in the hammer throw as the massive amount of competitors and limited throwing space forced the events to take place a day later than the rest of the meet.