Syracuse Track and Field kicks off indoor season

The Syracuse Orange track and field teams began the 2019-20 indoor campaign with athletes competing in two meets last weekend. Syracuse sent a few distance runners to Boston University while the rest of the team travelled to Cornell.

Before the season the Syracuse coaches told me that this would be the best women’s team since the move to the ACC. In addition to solid distance runnes Amanda Vestri and Laura Dickinson, the coaches were excited about some new talent in the sprint/hurdle group. On Saturday we got a glimpse of that potential as the Orange sprint group took to the track at Cornell. Freshmen Dennisha Page and Aja Davis finished 1-2 in the 60m dash with Eunice Boateng and Dassia Pressley finishing 4th and 5th.

In the 60m hurdles it was freshmen Shaleah Colaire winning in a time of 8.54 seconds with Aviana Goode finishing 3rd. Graduate transfer Phoebe Aguilar won the 500m and freshman Kate Kemnitz was the top collegiate runner in the 3k. In Boston, Jordan Jacob was 24th in the 5k with a new PR of 16:28.

For the men, the best performance of the weekend wasn’t an official Syracuse record but Iliass Aouani showed he’s in great shape running a 13:35 for the 5k in Boston. Aouani only has outdoor eligibility left but the current ACC 10k record holder showed he could be better in 2020 as his time was 3 seconds faster than Colin Bennie’s record.

The top men’s performance at Cornell came from freshman Naseem Smith who won the 60m hurdles finishing ahead of Jamil Adams. The Orange 4x800m relay grabbed a second place in a time of 8:13.95.

Syracuse will now be off until January and we’ll keep you updated on the team’s progress when they return.