Monmouth wins Lafayette Pentagular outdoor meet
Pellegrino, Pachuta, Kornegay star
Getting considerable help from area athletes, the Monmouth Univer-sity men and women were victorious at the Lafayette Pentagular Meet in Easton, Pa.
The Hawk men dominated the field, rolling up 242 points to runner-up Lafayette’s 116.
Nick Pellegrino, the ex-Marlboro High School standout, set a Monmouth record for the 5,000 meters, posting a 14:55.23 in winning his race.
Ex-Christian Brothers Academy star Mike Socha won the men’s long jump with a 22-2.
Sprinters Ryan Speid and Dexter Contee sparked the Hawk men with three individual wins. Speid won the 200-meter dash in 21.44 and then came back to set a new school record for the 400 meters at 47.48. He anchored the 4×400 relay team to its win in 3:15.26.
Contee won the 100-meter dash in 10.85. He ran the third leg on the 4×400 relay team and anchored the Hawks’ win in the 4×100 (42.82).
Kris Landers, a star at Wall High School, won the 800 meters in a time of 1:52.26.
In the throwing event, Monmouth was paced by its all-American Jon Kalnas. Kalnas, who kept resetting the indoor shot put record during a winter season in which he finished fifth at the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I championships, spun the discus 162-11, finishing first. Chris Paling won the hammer throw (173-3). Chris Cashin won the pole vault at 13-4.
Monmouth’s women needed every point the Hawks earned to beat host Lafayette, 163-156. Middletown South grad Katie Pachuta, the 2001 New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association discus champion, picked up where she left off with the Eagles last spring by winning the discus throw in Easton at 125-10.
Also winning for the Hawks was ex-Red Bank Catholic standout Suraya Kornegay, who took the 400 meters in 56.76. She also ran on the 4×400 relay team that took first in 3:57.85.
The Hawks’ only other individual winner among the women was Lisa Ricciardelli. She scored two wins. She was first in the hammer throw (156-3) and then won the pole vault in a school record 11-0.
Monmouth records continued to fall Saturday in Durham, N.C., at the Duke Invitational.
Kalnas unleashed a 172-2 discus throw to set a new school standard. He also won the shot put at 61-0 3/4.
Speid broke his own 400 mark with a 47.27.
Kornegay ran fifth in the 400 meters, but lowered the Monmouth school record to 56.6. That was an ECAC Championship qualifying time.
The Hawks will be in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday for the Onesty/Arbamson Invitational at the University of Virginia.