Griffins claim overall team title, SAIT's Travaglini gets 1500 record at MacEwan University Invitational

Jefferson Hagen / MacEwan Athletics

EDMONTON – SAIT's Matthew Travaglini broke the conference record in the men's 1500 metres and the host Griffins earned the most overall team points as the MacEwan University Invitational kicked off the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference 2018 indoor track season on Saturday at Kinsmen Field House.

Travaglini cruised to a comfortable win in the 1500, becoming the first ACAC competitor to go below the four-minute mark – his time of 3:59.89 breaking the record of 4:01.20 set by Concordia's Kirk Sundt in 2016.

"That's really cool," he said. "It wasn't the goal, but it's awesome to come away with it.

"I think it's just been the training's been going well. We have a great facility in Calgary. The whole team was pumped to get to our first team meet together. The atmosphere here kind of carried me through."

Travaglini later ran the finishing kick for the SAIT Trojans (behind Brent Stephen, Brant Lauweryssen and Christopher Karg) in the men's 4x400m relay, holding off a charge from MacEwan sprinting specialist Colin Walker on the back straight to give the Trojans a three-second win (3:37.26 to 3:40.30).

SAIT's Matthew Travaglini set a new ACAC record in the men's 1500 metres on Saturday (Robert Antoniuk photo).

The Griffins easily won the women's 4x400 race as Amanda Ntiamoah, Hannah Leggatt, Jocelyn Leffers and Nikita Case teamed up to lap three teams before winning by 17 seconds over distant runner-up RDC (4:14.82 to 4:31.83).

It was one of four wins for the MacEwan women's team on the day, leading to the overall team crown.

 "I'm very pleased how it turned out," said Griffins head coach Drew Carver. "The events everyone was placed in was where they should perform their best. So, I was pretty pleased with the results."

Kayla Enders of Lethbridge College and Devon Gurney of Red Deer College captured the women's and men's overall titles, respectively, while MacEwan (women) and SAIT (men) took the team crowns.

"Holy, I worked really hard for this, so it's absolutely amazing," said Enders, who finished second in both the women's 300 and 600 to grab the most overall points. "It's a really good feeling."

Gurney, normally a 3000 and 1500 specialist, won the men's 1000 on Saturday (2:54.31) and finished third in the 600 (1:30.97).

"It feels pretty cool," he said of winning man of the meet. "Today was kind of an experimental track meet for me. I used to run the 3000 and 1500. So, we just thought we'd take a chance and it worked out. It's pretty exciting for me because it's what I want to be doing."

Red Deer's Devon Gurney, left, and Lethbridge's Kayla Enders were the top point-getters on the day (Robert Antoniuk photos).

Amanda Ntiamoah returned to MacEwan University for her fourth year of eligibility this season looking to reclaim the ACAC women's 300m record that she once held. That quest will have to wait. Although she easily won the event on Saturday after her biggest competitors – teammates Case and Valerie Schlottke weren't entered – her time of 42.26 was well back of the 41.55 record Case set last season.

"It's not good," she said. "I definitely wanted to hopefully get the record this weekend, but it's not bad. It's a tenth faster than what I ran last weekend at the Golden Bear Open.

"Building blocks. Hopefully I can get the record (at ACAC Championship – set for March 9-10 at Kinsmen Field House). It's going to be a tough challenge between the three of us."

Case ran the 600 instead in an attempt to beat her record of 1:36.16 she set at this event last year. She strained hard for the finish line, but came up short in 1:37.42 – still enough to beat Enders by five-and-a-half seconds.

"I was trying a new strategy today. It didn't work, but that's OK," she said.

"Usually what I do is go out fast and try to decelerate the least. This time I tried to do even splits and that didn't work."

MacEwan's Nikita Case pushed hard to the finish line in the women's 600 metres, easily winning it, but came up short of her own ACAC record (Robert Antoniuk photo).

MacEwan's Thomas Cross-Trush, who had broken the ACAC men's 300 record three times in the last year, appeared on his way to another victory, but he went out too fast and was caught and passed in the final 15 metres by SAIT's Stephen.

That result and the men's relay served notice the Trojans are going to be the men's sprinters to beat this season.

"The men's relay team looked strong, but we definitely found out SAIT has a powerful team, so there's our competition (to focus on)," said Carver.

AROUND THE TRACK … Lethbridge's Sophia Nowicki won the women's 3000 in 10:54.27 over MacEwan's Roxanne Skoreyko (10:57.21) … Griffins' Scott Kohlman – the reigning ACAC men's athlete of the year – won the men's 3000 by almost seven seconds (9:28.96) over Grande Prairie's Brandon Wladyko … Reigning ACAC women's indoor track athlete of the year, Hannah Leggatt of MacEwan, won the 1000 by almost 20 seconds (3:03.83) … SAIT's Lauweryssen claimed the men's 600 in 1:28.31 over Lethbridge's Dayton Jans (1:30.13) … SAIT's Ricki Christopher took the women's 1500 (5:02.68) by almost 15 seconds ... For full meet results, click here.