The University of Rhode Island men’s track and field team hit its stride as the team set nearly two dozen new personal records in preparation for the Indoor Atlantic 10 Championship.

The Rams sent their best oval athletes to Boston on Friday for the Boston University Valentine Invitational. The oval at BU allows for the team to be their best, and that’s exactly what they were, according to URI Head Coach Trent Baltzell. In one day, the Rams set 15 new personal records in just 19 races; they also had several new entries into the URI all-time top 10 lists. Baltzell has grown to expect this from his team around this time of year.

“Throughout my coaching career, we’ve had multiple weekends that are as good or better than this one when you talk about the entirety of a team,” Baltzell said. “Quite often it happens on this exact weekend every year, two weeks before the conference championship… it tells me that we’re on track.”

Of those 15 personal records, there were a few that stood above the rest and had some major impacts on A-10 seeding. The first of those few came from second-year Alex Arbogast, who ran the 200-meter in 21.49 seconds.

“I’d say there are probably three that stand a little taller than the others… [Arbogast] pretty much PR’d by half a second which is such a considerable amount of time, and he valued himself all the way to third in the conference,” Baltzell said. “If he’s able to do it again in two weeks, it would really, really help our squad relative to the conference.”

The Rams now have two athletes in the top three of the A-10 in the 200-meter as Arbogast now sits below fellow Ram, fourth-year Jarrett Young.

The second of these notable new personal records came from fourth-year John Santos. The Rhode Island native is a non-sprinter, but was able to convince the staff to let him run the 60-meter dash for just the second time in his career. Santos ran it in 7.02 seconds, shattering his previous record of 7.44, which he set just over a year ago.

“A non-sprinter running the sprints, John Santos ran a really nice 60 to the delight of everybody,” Baltzell said. “It was just really cool to see that happen and I think it’s going to give him a lot of confidence for his jumping events come conference weekend.”

Santos also set a new personal record in the long jump as he leaped 6.81 meters; he now sits as the 11-seed. The Rams have three in the top 11 for the long jump; only Virginia Commonwealth University has as many.

Lastly, second-year Nathan Park set a new personal record in the pole vault for a second weekend in a row. Park now sits as the fourth seed in the A-10 behind fellow Ram, fourth-year Mason Brubaker.

“That’s a big event for us because it’s basically URI vs. George Mason [University] in the pole vault,” Baltzell said. “For him to jump ahead of a couple of their guys over the course of one weekend and set himself up to have some success at the conference championship is huge.”

With the A-10 Championship starting on Feb. 28, Rhode Island and George Mason both have four athletes inside the top-10 seeds for the pole vault.

Other notable performances included the aforementioned Brubaker, who won the pole vault at the Yale Giegengack Invitational on Saturday. Brubaker vaulted 4.85 meters and was the lone Ram to win an event during their trip to Yale.

The Rams accomplished these feats despite the fact they’ve been dealing with a sickness that’s been going around the team.

“We really had some sickness amongst the team, it’s kind of been going around the team for a few weeks,” Baltzell said. “It’s a lot of head colds and things like that, so they might not feel the best. But at least they’ve still been trying, and that’s a really important aspect when you’re 15 to 20 days out.”

The Rams have one more meet left before A-10s, where Baltzell expects about seven guys to compete. These will be athletes who missed this past weekend due to that sickness; the rest of the team will get some time to rest up.

That small group will be competing in the Brown Invitational this Saturday before getting ready for the A-10 Championship.

The post Men’s track and field sets multitude of personal records first appeared on The Good 5¢ Cigar.