South Hadley, MA --- Avinash Bissoondial (Millbury, MA) established a new facility record en route to winning the 1,500 meters and Brett Gerlach (Lock Haven, PA) and Gavin Fleck (Bend, OR) finished third in the high jump and pole vault as WPI men's track and field placed eighth overall as a team on Friday and Saturday at the New England Division III Track and Field Championships hosted by Mount Holyoke.
 
As a team, the Crimson and Gray amassed 33.5 points and were just 2.5 points out of fourth place.  MIT won the team title with 108.5 points while Tufts (78.5) finished second and Bowdoin (64) rounded out the top three. Amherst and Conn College posted 36 points tying for fourth as Bates (35) was sixth and Middlebury (34.5) finished seventh. 
 
Bissoondial was victorious in the 1,500 meters by clocking a time of 3:52.61 to win the event by less than a half a second.  Gerlach set a new personal best in the high jump.  The sophomore turned in a height of 6-6.25 to tie for third while teammate Matthew Catuccio (Trumbell, CT) was 18th (6-0.25).  Gerlach narrowly missed an All-New England citation in the triple jump, leaping 43-7.75 to place ninth.  Fleck cleared 15-7.75 on his way to third in the pole vault while teammate William Pagliarulo (Bedford, NH) joined him as All-New England honoree with a PR of 15-3.75 and Matt Gadziala (Clinton, NY) was 15th (13-10).

The relays were busy on Saturday as the foursome of Everett Mosher (Chester, VT), Thomas Skerry (Dedham, MA), Brendan May (Rutland, MA) and Brinson Wyche (Corvallis, MT) had the best showing of the bunch, placing fourth in the 4x800 in a time of 7:52.54 and were joined on the All-New England podium by the 4x100 relay quartet of Koray Boybeyi (Reston, VA), Tristan Andrew (Newtown, CT), Sam Manteria (Wilbraham, MA) and Alex Cole (Weymouth, MA) which was seventh reaching the finish line in 42.46.   Additionally, the grouping of Boybeyi, Anthony Minichiello (Burlington, MA), Gabriel D'Amour (Somers, CT) and Tristan Andrew (Newtown, CT) delivered a 12th place finish in a time of 3:27.04.
 
Wyche paced a trio of WPI competitors in the 800 meters with an 11th place time of 1:54.35 while Skerry was 17th (1:55.56) and Mosher 18th (1:56.00) and Andrew logged a 12th place finish in the 200 meters (22:32).  The javelin was also a busy event for the Engineers as Matt Richards (Peabody, MA) was 10th (175-8), Michael Neff (West Hartford, CT) 11th (174-5), Lucas Anthony (Lincoln, MA) 15th (170-1) and Ben Furman (Groton, MA) 18th (169-0).  Ethan Anderson (North Haven, CT) sent the discuss 144-6 to place ninth and Michael Zuo (Worcester, MA) heaved the shot put 38-9.50 to secure a 19th place showing.

WPI returns to action next Friday and Saturday, May 10th and 11th in the All-New England All-Divisions Championships at Holy Cross.
 
Results