University of Connecticut Athletics
Huskies Kick-Off Outdoor Season with a Spring Trip to Florida
3/19/2019 11:37:00 AM | Men's Track and Field
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The UConn men's track & field team ventured south during their spring break to kick-start the 2019 outdoor season with a week training at the University of North Florida. The Huskies will cap off the week with a contingent of athletes taking part in the UNF Spring Invitational on Thursday and Friday.
This week's trip to UNF will also allow the Huskies to train and compete at Hodges Stadium, which will be the site of this spring's NCAA East Regional Championship in late May. "The Florida trip has been a really valuable trip for us over the years," stated associate head coach Rich Miller. "It serves primarily as a week were we get to transition from being indoors to getting outdoors every day. Especially with the outdoor events that we are not just free to be doing outside up here."
"It's a working week," stated Miller. "We have a meet at the end that provides us the chance to do some things we want to do and try and further our development. It's a strength building phase and we are going to go down and put a lot of work in. It is just so important for us to get outside as this point and we are going to be able to really get quantity and quality this week. We are excited about it.""
The Huskies will be looking to take what was a successful and important indoor season and continue creating the building blocks for the program's success not only this spring, but in the future as well.
"Our team during indoor season was a young team and it was important to us to establish a level of character, toughness and competitiveness in order to set up our program for us to really grow in the future," said Miller. "Coming out of the indoor season, we had a lot of guys really step up into roles that maybe they never played before or saw development and all of a sudden are emerging in a new role within the program with their development."
UConn opened the 2019 calendar year by winning the Beantown Challenge meet at Harvard and closed the indoor season by claiming their second-straight IC4A Championship two weeks ago in Boston. In between, they laid the groundwork for success this spring as well. "It was really great to see the way the team evolved from the beginning of the year right through the IC4A Championships," commented Miller. "We saw success in different areas and we saw where we need to be stronger in different places. It was a season where we really grew by leaps and bounds and we really took advantage of the opportunities that we made for ourselves."
"As we move into the outdoor season, we bring in some of our guys who did not compete indoors, for various reasons, and it's really an opportunity for them to step in and continue to grow the personality and character of our team," said the Huskies associate head coach. "We believe we are setting up for the next three or four years right now. Where we believe we can really put some teams together that can really compete at the highest level."
UConn will welcome back a handful of athletes who redshirted during the indoor season and are expected to contribute this spring. On the track, r-junior Kyle Brackman (Berkeley Heights, N.J.) and r-sophomore Eric Van Der Els (Norwalk, Conn.) return while throwers senior Sebastian Castano (Cresskill, N.J.) and sophomore Matthew Brady (Biddeford, Maine) are back in the line-up. The Huskies will also benefit from the return of junior multi-eventer Jordan Torney (Toms River, N.J.) as well as sophomore high jumper Safir Scott (Greenwich, Conn.).
In the high jump, Scott was an NCAA Championship qualifier as a rookie. He began a great spring run when he finished second at the AAC title meet at 2.12m (6'11.5"). Scott followed that up with an eighth place finish at the NCAA East Preliminary meet to earn the qualifying bid, the first UConn rookie to make that trip since 2001.
Brackman was a scorer for the Huskies at last spring's AAC Championship; recording top-eight finishes in both the 5,000 meters (5th) and 10,000 meters (7th). This past fall, he was an All-AAC runner during cross country season with a 13th place finish.
Senior Kyle Barber (Fayetteville, N.Y.) in the 3,000 meter steeplechase has been a scorer for the Huskies at the AAC title meet in each of the last three seasons, highlighted by a second place finish in 2017. He posted a personal best in the event last season at the Penn Relays at 9:04.20.
The UConn coaching staff is excited to watch the group of 400-meter athletes who burst on the scene for the Huskies during the indoor season. Freshman Wellington Ventura (Cresskill, N.J.) emerged throughout the indoor schedule and put his stamp on the event with a record-breaking performance at IC4A's. Ventura took second place in the 400 meters while setting a new UConn school record, destroying his previous personal best with a blazing time of 46.47 seconds. Senior Kyle Trocki (Shrewsbury, Mass.) has helped lead the young group that has also seen another rookie in Noah Woodman (Hampstead, N.H.) and sophomore Omar Gebril (North Haven, Conn.) have impressive indoor season.
Sophomore Tyler Gleen (Shelton, Conn.) took a big jump during indoor season and claimed his first AAC title by winning the 800 meters at the indoor championship meet. Last season outdoors, Gleen captured the bronze in the 800 at the AAC Championship, running a 1:51.68. His top time of the outdoor season came at the Florida Relays when he clocked a 1:51.10.
Classmate Malik Snead (Trenton, N.J.) closed his 2019 indoor season successfully defendinig his triple jump crown at the AAC meet, winning with a leap of 15.75 meters (51'8.25"). Snead sat out last year's outdoor season and will be looking to claim his first AAC outdoor triple jump crown after finishing second at the 2017 meet. He is the current UConn record holder in the triple jump outdoors (16.18m).
Senior Ian Bergere (Madison, Conn.) is coming off an excellent indoor campaign and leads the Husky pole vaulters. Bergere won four times during this indoor season and is coming off matching his personal best at the final meet of the season, a 5.10 meter height at IC4A's. The senior is looking to build off that momentum as he heads outdoors, where last season he matched his best-ever outdoor height (5.00 m) at the AAC Championship in taking fifth.
In the throws, Brady returns after a strong 2018 indoor season that was highlighted by a third place finish at the IC4A Championship where he was third with a season best throw of 17.44 meters. Classmate Todd Steuber (Toms River, N.J.) is coming off a stellar indoor season where he collected three wins in the shot put while twice setting a new personal best in the event. Castano returns to the lineup after having the indoor season off. Last spring, the senior recorded a new personal best in the hammer at the AAC title meet at 55.31 meters.
"We feel we have the opportunity to make some strides this outdoor season and in the next couple years ahead, we can really grow from the experience of this past indoor season."
Players Mentioned
