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The University of Maine men’s track and field team won the College of the Holy Cross Invitational while the women’s team finished fourth on Saturday, with a couple of standout throwers breaking records on each side.
For the women’s team, freshman thrower Robyn McFetters picked up first place in the hammer throw after a toss of 185 feet, 10 inches, qualifying her for the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships.
Her throw breaks the previous school record set by Rebecca Even in 2009 when she recorded a distance of 175 feet, 2 inches in the hammer throw.
On the men’s side, junior thrower Justin Gagne broke his week-old record-breaker in discus with a throw of 174 feet, 10 inches, picking up first place. Last week at the University of New Hampshire Wildcat Invitational, Gagne threw the discus 166 feet, 9 inches, breaking a school record set by Alan Sherrard in 1979.
Gagne also picked up a victory in the shot put with a toss of 52 feet, 10.25 inches, good enough for a top-five throw in school history. But Gagne wasn’t satisfied with his shot put performance, which preceded his discus toss.
“Right before, I didn’t do as well in the shot as I would have liked,” he said. “After I just hung around with my teammates and joked around before I got into the circle and tried to stay calm and level-headed. Finally, when it was time for me to go, I walked up and was focused and knew what I had to do. I was able to focus on my technique and I got a good throw out of it.”
Gagne doesn’t credit anything specific to his record-breaking stretch, other than focusing every detail on just one good throw.
“Not much [changed]. We’ve just been doing what we’ve been doing,” Gagne said, “just putting it all together on one throw and [making] everything click.”
A lack of competition at Holy Cross prevented Gagne from mustering more on his shot put throw. Regardless, it was still worth a first-place finish.
“It didn’t turn out as well as I wanted to,” Gagne said. “There wasn’t as much competition as we would have liked and it’s hard to push yourself.”
The men’s team fared well in the hammer throw as well, with junior Ethan Moore and sophomore Wilson Adams finishing first and second, respectively, while both throwing for distances good enough for top-five in program history.
Sophomore Nathaniel Meade won the triple jump, leading 46 feet, 11.5 inches, good for a top-five mark in UMaine history. Meade was runner-up in the long jump.
Junior Taylor Phillips won the steeplechase with a time of 9 minutes, 22.78 seconds, a top seven mark in program history.
The Black Bears finished with 206 points, beating out Stonehill College, Bryant University, Holy Cross, Central Connecticut State University and Hartford University.
On the women’s side, senior Corey Conner also broke a school record in the 1500-meter with a time 4:27.00, besting her own time by a tenth of a second.
Senior Katy Grime took first overall in the discus with a toss of 132 feet, 6 inches, which was good for a top-three throw in UMaine history.
Sophomore Allison Fereshetian won the 100-meter hurdles, finishing in 14.48 seconds, good for a top-five school mark.
Freshman Carolyn Stocker won the 5000-meter with a time of 17:47.41.
The women’s team finished fourth out of seven teams, with Holy Cross, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Hartford finishing ahead of them.
