The St. Joe’s men’s track and field team concluded their indoor season with two powerful showings at their post-season meets.
On Feb. 26 the team finished their weekend at the Atlantic-10 (A-10) Indoor Championship with a gold medal from junior jumper, Patrick Fehm, in the high jump and a silver in both the 4×400 and 4×800 relays.
Fehm said that he views his first-place finish as a benchmark for where he wants to see himself by the end of the season.
“I came in confident that I needed to get first in that event,” Fehm said. “I still have [a] ways to go in terms of the marks of hitting. Progress is how I’d look at it.”
St. Joe’s finished seventh overall at the A-10 Championship. Junior middle distance runner Gavin Campell ran the second leg of the 4×800 relay. He also finished seventh in the 1,000m event, but said he prefers the relay.
“You get that baton in your hand, and you’re running for the team,” Campbell said. “You have more of a personal connection to it because you don’t want to let the other guys down.”
The strong showing from the Hawks in the relay events reflected well on the program as a whole, Campbell said, and shows the team culture they are building.
“Running on a relay and getting second in a relay just kind of showcases the strength and the depth of the team,” Campbell said. “That’s what it really helps reflect.”
Sophomore long sprinter Michael Brittingham, who ran the first leg of the 4×400 relay for St. Joe’s, was also part of the 4×400 relay team that claimed bronze at the 2022 A-10 Indoor Championship. He said that the team’s improvement in this event, and in general over the past year, stems from their growing confidence and determination to prove themselves as a program.
“Last year, it was kind of ‘can we do this?’” Brittingham said. “Now it’s like ‘we know we can do this.’”
Fehm said that it is easy for the team to be overlooked, but their recent performance has shown that they’re able to compete with bigger schools.
“It just goes to show that we’re still able to produce, and produce at a high level,” Fehm said. “That’s the standard we should all try to have. It develops an identity for us.”
Brittingham believes that the team’s determination to continue to improve is what helps them compete at this level.
“[The team’s performance is] going in the right direction,” Brittingham said. “I think what is always good is that we’re not satisfied.”
The team also competed at the IC4A Indoor Track and Field Championship on March 4 and 5, finishing second in the 4×400 and 4×800 relay events again, and earning fourth overall as a team.
Campbell is hoping that the team’s strong finish to their indoor season will carry into their outdoor season, which will commence on March 25 at the Rider Five Way meet.
“We’ve taken a very large step forward as a group last year,” Campbell said. “We’re getting more and more people in the finals. As a team, we’re building and we’re growing and want to continue to take the step forward.”
