Feb. 7, 2009
Results
WEST POINT, N.Y. - The Navy men's indoor track & field team dropped a 107-74 decision to Army in the Star Meet at West Point's Gillis Field House on Saturday afternoon.
The Midshipmen (4-4) won five of the 18 events, but the host Black Knights delivered first-and-second-place sweeps in nine events to prevail. The loss snapped Navy's seven-meet winning streak in Star Meets against its service academy foe. Despite the setback, Navy has won 10 of the last-12 Star Meets dating back to the 1997-98 season.
"Things just did not go well today for us," stated Navy head coach Stephen Cooksey. "Some of our guys like Andrew Grant, Dominic Della Pelle, Andrew Hanko, Matthew Leyndyke, Mark Van Orden and Christopher Bordino did well today. However, Army just had much more speed than we did."
Navy's best efforts on Saturday came in the 3,000-meter run and the 35-pound weight throw. In the former event, Andrew Hanko (So./Montville, N.J.) delivered a first-place time of 8:27.91 in his first action of the year to qualify for the IC4A Championship in March. Teammate Matthew Leyndyke (Sr./Traverse City, Mich.) followed in second place with a time of 8:30.22.
In the weight throw, Mark Van Orden (Jr./Morris Plains, N.J.) uncorked a career-best toss of 61'1/4" (18.60 meters) to win the event. Chris Bordino (Sr./Gastonia, N.C.) delivered a distance of 59'7" (18.16 meters) to claim second-place points for the Midshipmen and a sweep of the event.
Distance runner Andrew Grant (Sr./Athens, Ga.) completed the 1,000-meter run in 2:27.67 to qualify for the IC4A Championship and finish first in the event. Paul Neidhardt (Fr./Lawrenceville, Ga.) won the pole vault by tying his season-best clearance of 14'3-1/4" (4.35 meters). Navy completed the afternoon by winning the 4x800-meter relay with am IC4A, season-best time of 7:50.10.
In a highly competitive mile run, Dominic Della Pelle (Fr./Kennett Square, Pa.) was just nipped at the finish line but still turned in a career-best, IC4A-qualifying time of 4:11.84 for third place. He was edged by Army's Torre Santiago by 0.48-second and Jon Anderson by 0.44-second.
Two other Midshipmen posted season-best performances in finishing second in their events on Saturday. Matthew Hanley (Jr./Rapid City, S.D.) completed the 60-meter hurdles in 8.28 seconds and Brian Zitterkopf (Fr./Pace, Fla.) surpassed the 6'8" (2.03 meters) bar in the high jump.
The Midshipmen will close out their indoor regular season this Friday, Feb. 13, when they head to Bloomington, Ind., for the Hoosier Hills Invitational.
