Track & Field: Ruggiero sets meet record

The men’s and women’s track and field teams went away this weekend as they eased into the spring season that started at the beginning of March.

The men’s team traveled to Palo Alto, Calif., for the Stanford Invitational. The two-day event was run in sections because of the size of the meet, which included both collegiate competitors and high school students.

The Tigers received impressive performances from their middle-distance and distance runners, who tallied numerous best times. Sophomore Trevor Van Ackeren was the top Princeton finisher in the 1,500m run. He finished in 3 minutes and 46.86 seconds, just off his personal best, and won the second section of the race. Junior Kyle Soloff also competed in the third section and finished with a time of 3:47.41, a new personal best. Junior Tony Salvatore won the fifth section of the race in 3:51.27.

Senior Elliot Welder was Princeton’s only competitor in the 3,000m steeplechase, finishing with a time of 9:08.12, knocking more than 10 seconds off of his previous mark of 9:19.21.

Sophomore Donn Cabral was the top finisher for the Tigers in the men’s 5,000m race with a time of 14:01.33, cutting more than seven seconds from his career-best time. Classmate Max Kaulbach completed the race in 14:31.91.

Princeton’s only competitor in the grueling 10,000m race, junior Rob Speare, finished in 29:32.57.

In the shortest event of the invite, freshman Peter Callahan finished sixth in the 800m run with a time of 1:50.50, which was an improvement upon his high-school-best time of 1:51.22.

On the women’s side, the Tigers stayed much closer to home, attending the Monmouth Invitational to compete in just one event. Junior Emma Ruggiero won the women’s hammer throw with a throw of 54.95 meters, crushing the previous meet record of 51.76 meters. Classmate Thanithia Billings also competed in the event, finishing fourth with a throw of 51.01 meters.