The Colgate men’s track team had a decent showing last weekend, earning third place in the four-team Navy Quad meet in Annapolis. Navy won the event, followed by Penn, ‘Gate and American. The Raiders enjoyed a couple solid showings, most notably from junior Phil Natoli who earned first place in the 400-meter hurdles.

Although the Raiders were shut out of the meet’s feature dash, the 100-meters, Colgate did manage to place in both the 200 and 400-meter dashes thanks to senior Mike Walden and first-year Graham Tooker. Walden came in third in the 200 meters with a time of 22.80, which sounds even better because it ranks as the fifth-best time recorded in the Patriot League all season. Tooker placed sixth in the 400-meters with a time of 50.77, and he was actually joined in the top ten by sophomore Dan Schwaibold.

The distance runs did not fare as well for the Raiders with the exception of the 800-meters, where first-year Tim Metivier and sophomore Jonathan Knowlton placed seventh and ninth respectively with times of 1:55.80 and 1:56.39.

Colgate participated in both the 4×100 and 4×400 meter relays as well, placing third in the 100 and fourth in the 400. Although those finishes do not seem great in a four-team meet, the Raiders time in the 4×100 was good enough for third overall in the Patriot League this season, yet unfortunately was also only good enough for third on this day.

The real area where Colgate shined on this weekend however was with junior Phil Natoli and the 400-meter hurdles. Natoli took the race with a time of 54.92, nearly a second faster than the second finisher. The time nearly bested his own personal best of 54.65 which he set at last year’s Patriot League Championships, and came in as the second best 400-meter hurdle time of the Patriot League season.

“I have specialized in the 400 hurdles for five years now, and I came into the race in the best shape I’ve ever been in at the beginning of a season,” Natoli said. “With all this in mind, I had the confidence to perform at the level that I did.”

Although the Raiders results from the Navy Quad may not seem so impressive at first glance, upon further inspection it becomes clear that Colgate came in with a truly solid meet.

“The level of competition at the meet was very high; Navy, Penn, and American have a lot of talented athletes. Additionally, coming off spring break into the first meet of the season with only one week of hard training put even more pressure on our team. However, our athletes performed well, and in many cases exceeded expectations. We showed that we can run with these strong teams,” Natoli said.