ITHACA, N.Y. - Sprinter
Niko Jemmison (Brooklyn, N.Y./Brooklyn Generation) claimed a pair of school records to pace the Daemen College men's indoor track and field team at the Marc Deneault Invitational hosted by Cornell University today at Barton Hall. The unscored meet marked Daemen's first since competing at the SPIRE Indoor Track and Field Challenge on February 5-6 after their trip to last weekend's Colgate Class of '32 Invitational was cancelled due to inclement weather.
Jemmison, a 5-foot-10 junior, established new benchmarks in both the 60-meter and 300-meter dashes today. Jemmison ran his 60-meter dash preliminary race in a record time of 7.18 seconds, eclipsing the previous school-best of 7.22 seconds set by
Alex Reid (Lockport, N.Y./Lockport) at the Hamilton Invite on February 15, 2014. Jemmison's time in the 60-meter dash prelims was ninth-best out of 34 entrants, placing him one spot out of finals contention. Of the eight final qualifiers ahead of him, four were from NCAA Division I schools and two were independents. Jemmison's 300-meter dash time of 38.15 seconds was good for 12th place, finishing just ahead of teammate
Drew Greenaway (Brooklyn, N.Y./Brooklyn Generation) who came in 14th (40.33 seconds).
Jemmison now owns five school records counting the two he picked up today. He's also the Wildcats' record-holder in both the 400-meter (52.80 seconds) and 500-meter (1:12.96) dashes, and he's a member of the top 4 X 200-meter relay team (1:33.52) in team history.
Daemen also picked up a trio of top-15 finishes in the 800-meter run today. Junior
Matt VanDeMortel (Geneva, N.Y./Geneva) led the group, finishing 11th with a time of 2:01.09. He was backed up by
Nigel Cordulla (Cheektowaga, N.Y./John F. Kennedy) and
Mike Capestrani (Jamestown, N.Y./Jamestown) who finished 14th and 15th, respectively, with times of 2:04.01 and 2:07.40.
Long distance runner
Jeremy Rushok (Akron, N.Y./Buffalo State College) continued his solid season, finishing in 12th place in the 3,000-meter run. Rushok, who holds the school record (9:10.65) in the event, was 10 seconds off that pace today (9:20.66).
Kevin Roginson (Amherst, N.Y./Williamsville North) finished 15th in the same event with a time of 9:22.46.
In field events, sophomore
Zach Laird (Alexander, N.Y./Alexander Central) led the way, recording a personal-best throw of 12.61 meters in the shot put to finish in eighth place.
The meet today marked Daemen's second this season at Cornell's Barton Hall. The Wildcats previously competed here in the Robert J. Kane Invitational on January 30.
It was also Daemen's final tune-up opportunity in preparation for the East Coast Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships which are slated for February 26 at the Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex in Staten Island, N.Y.
