Men's Track & Field Wins Westminster Invitational

WESTMINSTER, Pa. – The Penn State Behrend men's track and field team placed first out of 25 teams in the Westminster Invitational Saturday with a team score of 115.

Matt McWilliams (Waterford, PA/Fort LeBoeuf) and Josh Natalie (Erie, PA/Strong Vincent) both qualified for ECACs and broke the school record in the 1500m. McWilliams won the event with a time of 3:53.07 and Natalie took second in 3:54.40.

Colby Tarr (Uniontown, PA/Laurel Highlands) and Joshua Burns (St. Mary's, PA/St. Mary's Area) finished sixth and seventh in the 110m hurdles with times of 16.10 and 16.12 respectively. Burns also took second in the 400m hurdles with a 56.85 and Tarr finished fourth at 56.90.

In the 800m, Dylan Buffington (Brookville, PA/Brookville), Cody Cornell (Conneaut Lake, PA/Conneaut Lake) and McWilliams swept the top three spots respectively. Buffington ran a 1:54.21, Cornell ran a 1:55.53 and McWilliams posted a 1:55.95.

The 4x100m relay team of Joseph Neff (North East, PA/North East), Kevin Gardner (Waterford, PA/Fort LeBoeuf), Luke Patten (West Middlesex, PA/West Middlesex) and Matthew Grafton (Worthington, PA/Kittaning) beat their already ECAC qualifying time and place third in 42.74.

In the field, Mitchell Obenrader (Fryburg, PA/North Clarion) won the shot put with a distance of 16.25m. He also won the javelin with a distance of 60.70m, beating his already ECAC qualifying distance, and took fourth in the discus, heaving a distance of 42.18m.

Gardner finished second in the high jump, leaping 1.94m. Ryan Horstman (Butler, PA/Butler) took sixth in the triple jump with a distance of 13.00m.

The Lions return to the track to race at home next Saturday at the Behrend Invitational scheduled to start at 10 a.m.