COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – Junior Avi Bregman opened Day 2 of the three-day Centennial Conference outdoor track & field championship by defending his 3,000-meter steeplechase title as Haverford College's men's team joined Johns Hopkins University in what looks like will be a two-team race on the final day of the championship Sunday at Patterson Field on the campus of host Ursinus College.
Bregman captured the steeplechase crown with a winning time of 9 minutes, 13.08 seconds, leading a trio of Fords into the scoring spots of the top-eight finishers. Teammate David Roza finished third, 14 seconds back, with another Ford, Daniel Stackman, coming in sixth.
The only other track final of the day was the afternoon's closing event, the 4x800 relay. Haverford's quartet of Michael Riccio, David Colletta, Ivo Milic-Strkalj and Jordan Schilit garnered a fourth-place finish with a time of 7:55.17.
The high jump event was completed on Saturday with the Fords adding a third and fourth place to their team point totals. Haverford's Gibby Graves and Jeffrey Ainsley along with Ryan Walsh from Johns Hopkins University all cleared a final height of 1.88 meters (6 feet, 2 inches) but Walsh earned second place, Graves third and Ainsley fourth based on the number of misses.
Event finals produced a team total of 71 points for Haverford on Saturday, trailing only Johns Hopkins University's total of 86.5 points. Far back of the top two is third-place Gettysburg College which ended the day with 36 points.
Sunday's concluding event list brings finals of several events that raced preliminary heats Saturday.
Ainsley will go for the gold in the 110m hurdles after posting the second-fastest time, 15.60 seconds, in the preliminary heats.
A trio of sprinters will try to improve their Saturday times in the final of the 200. Sam Callon, Ainsley and Jonathan Yellets enter Sunday's final with the sixth-, seventh- and eighth-fastest times, respectively, after Saturday's prelim heats.
Yellets also qualified for the 400 final, completing Saturday's one-lap race in a time of 50.03 seconds which is a career-best by more than a second. He enters the final with the third-best time.
The 800 prelims produced a quartet of Fords who will race in the final led by Jordan Schilit. With a time of 1:54.38, Schilit will toe the starting line as the top seed Sunday afternoon. Joining the Haverford senior in the eight-man final will be Milic-Strkalj, Gebby Keny and Charlie Marquardt.
Other event finals Sunday with Haveford athletes competing for points are the triple jump, 1,500 and 5,000, and the 4x100 and 4x400 relays.