GENESEO, NY -- Alfred University men's track and field traveled to SUNY Geneseo for a two-day invitational meet on Friday April 4th and Saturday April 5th.

On day one of competition, Jason Crocker (Oreland, PA/Springfield Township) competed in hammer throw. Crocker's best throw marked in at 37.46m. He followed up on day two of the meet with a third-place finish in the shot put. This top finish by Crocker was impressive against the 47 shot put competitors.

The Saxons had an outstanding performance in both relays on Saturday. The 4x100 meter relay crossed the finish line at 43.81 seconds, scoring them third place in their heat, and overall. Khamani Hunter Sr (Poughkeepsie, NY/FDR) opened the race, then Riley Ciamarra (Cortlandt Manor, NY/Walter Panas) in second leg who handed off to Steve Cordell Hoskins III (Buffalo, NY/St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute) and Neil Peters (The Bronx, NY/DeWitt Clinton) brought the race home.

In the 4x400 meter relay, Jonathan Hodges (Kenmore, NY/Kenmore West), Ciamarra, Jayden Noel (Brooklyn, NY/Automotive) and Peters finished first in the second heat of the race, with a combined time of 3:30.11. Overall, they ran the sixth fastest time out of 15 relay teams. 

A fifth-place finish was made by first-year Hodges in the 400-meter dash. Of 28 runners, Hodges finished second in his heat to achieve his personal best time of 50.65 seconds. 

In the discus throw, Crocker and Daimel Fowler (Baldwinsville, NY/Baker) competed among 47 athletes. Crocker's furthest throw measured 39.08 meters, taking him to 14th place. 37.76 meters was achieved by Fowler on his last attempt, that led him to 19th place.

"You don't need a perfect day to do great things," Head Coach Matt Phillips '10 said. "Our team certainly embraced that mentality today."

"We spent this past week training and planning our strategy," Assistant Coach Bill Sortore said. "We showed up to pouring rain and 20-mph winds. Despite the conditions, we saw many personal and season bests. With 40 years of track and field it's days like this that I measure the quality of a team by how they stand up to such extreme conditions. These two teams kept their spirits high."

"The team did a great job battling through tough conditions with the wind and rain throughout the day," Graduate Assistant Kevin Flint commented. "This meet gave us a chance to focus more on competing rather than chasing times and the athletes responded well. We saw several strong performances today, especially for a meet this early in the season which sets us up for an exciting stretch ahead."

The Saxons travel to Juniata College, PA next weekend to compete on Saturday April 12th.