Men's Track and Field | 5/7/2016 4:39:00 PM

Men's results | Women's results
TROY, N.Y. -- Luis Rivera and Tom Sippie, seniors on the Golden Flyers' track and field team, were among the top performers for Nazareth Friday and Saturday as the men's team finished in seventh place at the New York State Collegiate Track Conference championships at Rensselaer.

Nazareth finished with 64 team points to finish seventh in the 12-team field. Rensselaer won the team title with 146.5 points, followed by Rochester (120), Utica (119.5) and Ithaca (119). Nazareth finished eighth in the women's meet with 22 points. Ithaca was first with 195.5 points, followed by Rochester with 185.5 points.

Rivera on Friday broke his own school record in the hammer throw with a first-place heave of 58.85 meters or 193 feet, 1 inch. That exceeded his previous best distance by 11 inches that was set last season at the NCAA meet at St. Lawrence and ranks him among the top five performers nationally. Rivera also placed 10th Saturday in the discus with a throw of 131 feet.

Sippie was part of three school records on the track as he won both the 200- and 400-meter dashes and anchored the winning 4 x 400-meter relay. He was named the Meet's Outstanding Track Athlete. He was clocked in 21.712 in the 200 to edge out runner-up Jeffrey Hrebenach of UR by a fraction of a second. He won the 400 in :48.02 seconds and ranks among the national leaders in both races. Sippie posted a 400 time of :47.51 on the anchor leg of the 4 x 400 as the team finished first with a school-record time of 3:18.84. Sophomore Nick LaBarbera, freshman Michael-Jordan Morris and junior Matt Battaglia also ran in that event.

Other top performers for Nazareth included Morris, who broke his own school record in the preliminaries of the 110-meter hurdles with a time of :15.48 before finishing third; LaBarbera, who finished second behind Sippie in the 400 with a time of :48.48; Battaglia, who placed fourth in the 800-meter run with a time of 1:55.31; and senior Brandon Vuolo, who finished fifth in the discus (139 feet, 7 inches), eighth in the shot put (46 feet, 2 inches) and 14th in the hammer throw (138 feet, 5 inches).

In the women's competition, senior Amanda Entress broke her own school record in the triple jump with a third-place leap of 37 feet, 3 inches. She also finished 12th in the long jump (16 feet, 7 inches). Sophomore Emily Soeder was third in the high jump as she cleared 5 feet 2 1/2 inches. Senior Gabrielle LeBihan finished fifth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a time of 11:22.21 and sophomore Claire Ludington was 10th in the 5,000-meter run with a personal-best time of 18:57.39.

Nazareth also finished third in the 4 x 400-meter relay with a time of 4:02.40. Freshman Michaela Traylor and sophomores Andrea Larnard, Sarah Williams and Samantha Goble competed in that event with Goble clocking a :58.27 400-meter split on the anchor leg.