ALBANY, N.Y. – The University at Albany track & field program is set to host its first and only home meet of the 2018 outdoor season this weekend with the running of the 34th Spring Classic. The meet has expanded to three days this year to accommodate the women's heptathlon and the men's decathlon, which will compete exclusively on Thursday and Friday before the full meet is held on Saturday.
The Spring Classic represents the second of five consecutive weekends in which the Great Danes will compete, after competing in three meets over the first six weeks of the season. The current stretch, which runs through IC4A and ECAC Outdoor Championships at Princeton University in May, began last week when UAlbany split up for meets in Jamaica and at the University of Connecticut.
“Jamaica was a tremendous experience for our student-athletes,” said Director of Track & Field and Cross Country Roberto Vives. “They represented the University at Albany in a positive manner; they were tremendous ambassadors for us. The time was compressed but no one complained about anything. They were ready to go. On meet day, I was proud of how we competed. We won three individual events and set a school record all in one night.
“The University of Technology was very hospitable to us,” Vives continued. “Anthony Davis is the director of sports there and he really just bent over backwards for our program. They had busses at out disposal to take us where we wanted to take us to dinner and things like that.”
Highlighting the weekend was the women's 4x100m relay consisting of Stephanie Osuji, Chanel Smith, Dayleen Santana Rodriguez, and Taahira Butterfield. The quartet has been running together for the last three years and their best performance last year, 45.22, set a new school record. Over the weekend, the women became the first UAlbany team to break 45 seconds in the event, running 44.92.
“The women's 4x100m relay was the performance of the weekend,” said Vives. “The anticipation has built up over a period of time. The handoffs were very good. They were in the outermost lane, so the first three legs ran blind until the anchor leg. It was a goal we wanted to achieve, and it meant a lot to assistant coach Junior Burnett. He has worked really hard with them and for it to happen in his home country, he was very, very proud. It was a special moment.”
Only about a dozen or so student-athletes competed in Jamaica last weekend. The rest competed at UConn for the Northeast Challenge, which has become a staple of the Great Danes outdoor schedule since its inception a few years ago. It was the first time all season that the entire team competed on the same day.
“We were checking results all day for UConn,” said Vives. “For some of our student-athletes who haven't competed in five or six weeks, they had some good initial performances. We saw a lot of personal bests. You can see other groups coming up and developing behind our top student-athletes, and these are the performers of the future and it shows them that they count as well. Straight across the board I think we had some very good performances. We're in a good place.”
The Spring Classic is one of three sanctioned home events that UAlbany conducts during the school year, and one of two that take place on campus. Indoors, the Danes' home meet takes place at the Ocean Breeze facility on Staten Island. The ability to remain at home for a weekend is something Coach Vives finds significant.
“One of the things that's exciting about all sports is to be at home in front of your friends and roommates and colleagues,” said Vives. “There's a comfort level that comes with being at home. I think that adds a big element to it, where everybody can see you. The track we have is as fast as the University of Oregon. It's the same surface. I've seen if every year where people have gotten big breakthrough performances in that facility. We're excited about a home meet. For us it's a lot of work because on top of coaching you're doing everything else, but for the kids it's a tremendous experience.”
Not everyone competing this weekend will do so at the Spring Classic. A group of distance runners will instead head south to compete at the University of Virginia.
“There is a group going to Virginia,” said Vives. “For the distance runners, they have limited opportunities to run the 10,000m especially. You can't do too many of those in a season, so you want to give them the best possible opportunity. We're sending nine student-athlete there, and we're just hoping to get some regional qualifiers for that group.”
With the change in the schedule calling for a competition every week instead of every other week, the training changes as well in the final push to prepare for conference championships, which are just two weekends away.
“Now that we're competing every weekend we tend to load up earlier in the week,” said Vives. “We'll go hard Monday and Tuesday and then go light the rest of the week. We look at the competition day, especially for people in my group, almost like another training opportunity, where they run a 400m and come back with a 4x400m. We look at that as getting some work in because we'll ask some student-athletes to double at conference championships and they need to have the strength to do so.”
UAlbany was unable to host any home track meets for a few years while the new facility was under construction at the same time as Tom & Mary Casey Stadium. Since the new facility opened, there have been efforts to rebuild the strength and quality of the Spring Classic to continue to attract programs to the meet.
“We have a tremendous facility,” said Vives. “I wish we could host more home meets. We used to host more, but we found the early meet was too cold, and the calendar doesn't currently allow for our meet in May. In 2020 May will have five weekends again so we'll be able to host our Last Chance meet. The lone home meet is very important to us to really showcase our facility and compete at home. We're road warriors. We're on the road all the time. It's nice for once to be at home and not have to travel.
“We would like eventually to have a lot more Division I schools participate in our meet than we have now,” Vives continued. “We only have a handful this year. There are some conference schools, Vermont and Hartford, which is good. Last year we had Northeastern. Getting more of the stronger schools from the region is going to be important for the future. We do have competition based on the teams from Canada coming, club teams coming, and open athletes participating. But I told our team that we've proven with the RACC Classic that we don't need other teams to perform. We can push each other.”
Among the schools visiting UAlbany this weekend are local area institutions like Union, RPI, Saint Rose, and Siena.
“It's good to have the local schools here,” said Vives. “They are supportive of us. The meet next week at RPI is an important meet for us because less than half the team gets into Penn Relays so it offers our remaining student-athletes an opportunity to compete the week before conference championships as well. Having the local schools supporting one another is tremendous. And we like to see first-hand the schools in our area continue to develop. I think it's good for the development of the sport in this region of the country.”
The Spring Classic kicks off Thursday at noon with the men's decathlon, followed by the women's heptathlon at 12:30 p.m. Friday at noon the decathlon and the heptathlon will conclude. Field events for the Spring Classic begin Saturday at 10:00 a.m. while track events begin at noon following a short ceremony to recognize the seniors on this year's roster. The Virginia Challenge begins Friday at 11:00 a.m. The evening sessions Friday and Saturday at the Virginia Challenge will stream on ACC Digital/ESPN3 starting at 7:00 p.m. each night.
