Trackmen dominate at Jim Thorpe invite

The Penn State men's outdoor track and field team celebrated Easter early by dominating the competition at the Jim Thorpe Invitational on Saturday at Nittany Lion Track.

"It was a good way to start the season," he said. "We moved a lot of people around to see what we can do at the Colonial Relays next week, but we still had some people get personal bests in their events."

Groves added he especially was pleased with thrower Bill McGinley's effort. McGinley took first in the shot put, improving his best throw by two feet. The senior also scored personal bests in the discus and hammer throw.

"Bill McGinley really stepped up in the shot put and had a great performance down the line," Groves said.

Joe Loner and Neal McNutt, two of the most consistent Lions during the indoor season, remained hot, capturing victories in the 800-meter run and hammer throw, respectively. McNutt won the hammer throw with a toss of 188 feet, 9 inches, while Loner held off teammate Dave Weil in the 800 with a time of 1 minute, 57 seconds.

Other victorious Lions included Johan Sanquist (1,500 meters), Sean Vago (high jump), John Gorham (long jump), John Whelan (110-meter high hurdles) and Kevin Geesaman (5,000 meters). The Lion 4 x 400 relay team of Weil, Loner, Damon Reed and Andy Oxendine was also victorious, winning in a time of 3:24.

Although he won his event, Geesaman was not particularly pleased with his outing in the 5,000 meters.

"The time was a little disappointing. I always would like to go faster," he said. "It was windy, but you have to deal with that all the time in track."

Rob Austin, a 1996 Penn State graduate, may have had the meet's top performance. He easily took the javelin with an impressive throw of 230 feet, 11 inches, good enough to qualify for the USA Track and Field Championships in June.

The Lions compete again Friday and Saturday at William and Mary in the highly competitive Colonial Relays.

Sanquist said the Lions will be a tough team to beat come the weekend.

"We look better and better each week," he said. "We had a lot of injuries during indoor, but we're a lot healthier now. We have a lot of people back so we should be pretty strong."