TROY, N.Y. --- Seniors David Cariello and Kristopher Joint combined to earn 16 points to help the Moravian College men's track & field team to a seventh place finish at the 2014 ECAC Division III Outdoor Championships hosted by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Friday.
The Greyhounds scored a total of 38 points in the two-day meet. SUNY Oneonta captured the team title with 63 points while Bates (Maine) College was the runner-up with 60 points.
Joint captured his second individual title in as many days, winning the long jump with a career-best mark of 7.46 meters (24 feet, 5.75 inches). The mark a new Landmark Conference record and is the second-best distance in Moravian history. The jump also moves Joint to second in the nation in the event on the Track & Field Results Reporting System and assures him of competing in two events at the NCAA Division III National Championships next week with Joint currently having the top triple jump in the country this spring. Before the mark Friday, Joint was tied for 20th in the country, the cutoff for the national meet.
Joint's winning mark came on his third attempt in the preliminaries after fouling on his first two attempts of the competition. In the finals, he had two more fouls with his toes just over the red line while his other jump registered 6.94 meters.
Cariello netted six points towards the Greyhounds' team score with a third place finish in the decathlon. Cariello finished the ten-event competition with 6,371 points, a personal record in the event and the fifth-best mark in school history. Cariello's point total likely puts him 22nd on the TFRRS list, outside the NCAA meet; however, the final field will be announced on Sunday, May 18 at 9:00 a.m. on NCAA.com and Cariello could still make the national meet if several competitors above him on the TFRRS list opt not to attend the meet.
In the second day of action Friday, Cariello had the fastest time of 15.47 seconds in the 110 meter high hurdles to earn 794 points. He then had a PR in the discus with a toss of 33.23 meters (109 feet) for 528 points before clearing a height of 3.94 meters (12 feet, 11 inches) in the pole vault for another 601 points. Cariello was second among the 13 competitors in the javelin with a toss of 45.13 meters (148 feet) for 517 points before finishing the competition with a time of 5:03.49 in the 1,500 meter run worth 540 points.
Freshman Kahron Walker finished 11th in the high jump Friday, clearing a height of 1.96 meters (six feet, five inches).
On the track, junior Dillon Farrell was 13th in the 1,500 meter run with a time of 4:03.85 while freshman Cory Taggert finished 22nd in the 800 meter run in 1:59.90. The Greyhounds 4x100 meter relay squad of senior Craig Arner, sophomores John Barr and Ryan Karnopp and freshman Matt Barnett placed 19th in the race in a time of 44.63 seconds.
Moravian will find out on Sunday exactly how many student-athletes will be competing at the 2014 NCAA Division III Outdoor National Championships from Thursday, May 22 to Saturday, May 24 at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio. Being in the top two in the country, Joint will compete in the long jump and triple jump while senior Timothy Lorah is second in the nation in the javelin and will attend the meet as well. Karnopp is currently tied for 15th in the pole vault and will likely head to the national championships as well.
