Allen Wins Mile at the Dartmouth Relays

Sunday, January 11

Hanover, N.H.

All Day

University of Massachusetts Lowell

Dartmouth Relays

Full Results

1/11/2015 9:05:00 PM | Men's Cross Country/Track & Field

Hanover, N.H. – Senior Robert Allen (Cranston, R.I.) won the mile run to highlight a solid performance by the UMass Lowell men's track and field team, Sunday, at the 46th Dartmouth Relays at the Leverone Field House in Hanover, N.H.

"For our first meet after a month off we were very pleased," said Head Coach Gary Gardner. "There was some good, some not so good, some surprises. There was more good than otherwise and we were very pleased with our fitness levels."

River Hawk men finished third among ten colleges chalking up 45 points. The host school, Dartmouth College, took the top spot with 129 points, Southern Connecticut State University was second with 66 points.

Allen led from start to finish to grab a narrow victory in the mile run with a time of four-minutes and 13.23-seconds. After eight laps on the track Allen finished just four-one hundredths of a second ahead of his nearest challengers.

"He showed his toughness in this race," said Gardner. "He towed the rest of the field with him."

Gardner's description is a good one in that Allen, who prefers not to be the pace setter, ran from the front throughout the race. That reflects the lack of a top notch pace setter in the field and meant that the coaching staff had to find different ways to challenge Allen. Gardner asked Allen to run each lap of the second half of the race in a faster time than the previous lap. Allen responded by running the final half mile in a time of 2:03.

Allen's performance in the mile was just one of several strong showings by River Hawk men.

Freshman Marcus Duncan (Dalton, Mass.) took a second place finish in the 400 meter dash. Duncan's time of 50.16 seconds was just 19-one Hundredths of a second behind the winner Phil Gomez of Dartmouth.

"It was a learning experience," said Gardner. "He ran much of the race in lane two trying to get around the leader. That may work in high school, but not here. You've got to trust yourself and go get them."

Freshman Vladimir Popusoi (Greenfield, Mass.) cleared 14-feet 7 1/4-inches in the pole vault to earn a third place finish.

"He's growing, he's getting better," said Gardner. "I think he turned the corner, just a bit, today."

Sophomore John Fiorello (Tewksbury, Mass.) scored a fifth place finish in the shot put. He heaved the metal ball 51-feet, 2 3/4 inches.

Three River Hawks scored in the high jump. Junior Oluwantoni Onikeku (Fitchburg, Mass.) grabbed third place with a jump of six-feet, 6 1/4-inches. Freshman Rino Tonelli (Shrewsbury, Mass.) and sophomore Gilberto Brown (Lowell, Mass.) tied for fourth place after clearing the bar at six-feet, 4 1/4-inches.

The River Hawks are back in action Saturday at the Jumbo Invitational at Tufts University.