V-Reds soar to new heights at AUS championship

The UNB Varsity Reds capped off an extremely successful conference championships. Over the course of two days the V-Reds ran, jumped, and threw their hearts out achieving countless personal bests, school records, and medals.  

As a team the men scored 96 team points to finish second overall.  This is the men's team's highest finish in the modern era. Since the program was brought back UNB finished fifth in 2011, 2012 and 2013 with 21 points, 9 points and 20 points respectively, third in 2014 with 78 points, and now second with 96 points.  

Dalhousie, last year's second place team, won the AUS team title with 148.5 points. UNB was second with 96, StFX, last year's champions, were third with 87 points, Université de Moncton was fourth with 35 points, Saint Mary's was fifth with 20 points, Acadia was sixth with 9.5 points, and Saint Thomas was seventh with 9 points.  

Third-year Daniel Brown continued to build and improve on his previous AUS championship results this weekend.  In 2014, Brown was a bronze medalist in both the 300m and 600m.  In 2015, he won the 300m in a time of 35.96s - just missing the AUS record of 35.85s set in 1993.  

Brown also won the silver medal in the 600m in a time of 1:21.79s.  This 600m time broke the AUS record of 1:22.00 from 1992, but Brown was just edged out by Mackenzie Munro of StFX with a time of 1:21.68. Brown would add another silver to his medal haul as a member of the men's 4x400m team.  

Off the track, UNB proved to be the top school in the weight throw taking the top two spots. All weekend the throws were loud and exciting with many throwers saving their best for last. However, in the end it was UNB's Luke Dillman winning the event with a best throw of 14.57m and setting a new UNB record in the process.  Teammate Brad Carragher definitely made Dillman work for it, though, as he finished second with a best of 14.33m, a difference of only 25cm.  

Brown and Dillman will extend their season as they have qualified for the CIS national championships in Windsor March 12-15.  Brown will compete in the 300m and Dillman in the weigh throw. 

Kyle Lefort proved to be the iron man of the UNB team over the weekend. Starting off with the pentathlon Lefort earned a silver medal with hard-fought performances in the 60m hurdles, long jump, shot put, high jump, and the 1000m. In the end, a late kick in the 1000m by eventual winner Sebastien Ayangma kept the point gap too close and Lefort missed the gold by 26 points.

But it was during his pentathlon where Lefort shone.  In the 60m hurdles he set a new personal best and school record of 9.09s and in the high jump he cleared 1.94m - a new personal best and making him the #2 jumper on the UNB team.  But Kyle wasn't done there as he came back the next day running three 60m hurdle races eventually finishing in fourth place in the final, sixth in the high jump, and seventh in the triple jump.  

UNB proved to be a very well-rounded team as they also accumulated serious hardware in the jump events.  In the long jump Brandon Cleghorn led most of the competition but over the later rounds dropped to third with a jump of 6.61m just missing the silver by 4cm. Cleghorn would go on to finish 4th in the high jump with a best of 1.86m.  

Teammate Jordan Johnson improved on his bronze medal last year in the high jump earning a silver medal with a best of 1.91m.  

Also improving on his 2014 result was Kyle Ancheta who won the silver medal in the triple jump with a best of 12.43m.  Kyle would also finish 13th in the long jump competition.  

Evan Grant and Troy Wilson each won bronze medals in the pole vault competition with a best clearance of 2.85m.  They now co-hold the UNB school record.  Grant would also finish sixth in the high jump while Wilson was ninth in the pentathlon.  

Artabaz Nazari broke the UNB school record in the 60m en route to a silver medal running 7.01s.  Nazari improved all year and can now hold claim to being the fastest to have attended UNB.  Nazari would add to his medal collection with a bronze medal in the 4x200m relay.

First year Ben Fowler had a busy two days taking part in the pentathlon and individual 60m hurdles.  In the pentathlon, Fowler achieved a senior event score personal best of 2828pts to finish in 6th place but bounced back the next day to earn himself a bronze medal in the 60m hurdles. 

The silver medal winning 4x400m team consisted of Brown, Jonathan Bunn, Mike Whitcomb, and Jeff Retallick. The bronze medal winning 4x200m team consisted of Nazari, Whitcomb, Retallick, and Jake Hayes. 

"The men's team rallied all season behind a team goal of getting as high up on the podium as possible," said UNB head coach Jason Reindl. "While it still isn't the top. It is the highest since 1968-69 and this is a huge step in the right direction.  Our men continue to improve and impress and I have no doubt that we will see further improvements next year."

Full UNB result recap:

60m - Artabaz Nazari SILVER, Mike Whitcomb 4th, Jake Hayes 10th, Kalen Park 21st
300m - Daniel Brown GOLD, Jeff Retallick 6th, Kalen Park 15th
600m - Daniel Brown SILVER, Jonathan Bunn 6th, Clayton Holteen 14th
1000m - Jonathan Bunn 5th, Taylor Lamarche 9th, Clayton Holteen 10th
1500m - Joshua Shanks 10th, Taylor Lamarche 12th
3000m - Joshua Shanks 7th
60m Hurdles - Ben Fowler BRONZE, Kyle Lefort 4th
4x200m - BRONZE - Nazari, Retallick, Whitcomb, Hayes
4x400m - SILVER- Whitcomb, Retallick, Bunn, Brown
4x800m - 4th - Lamarche, Holteen, Shanks, Bunn
High Jump - Jordan Johnson SILVER, Brandon Cleghorn 4th, Matthew Kinch 6th, Evan Grant 6th, Kyle Lefort 6th
Pole Vault - Evan Grant BRONZE, Troy Wilson BRONZE
Long Jump - Brandon Cleghorn BRONZE, Kyle Ancheta 13th, Trevor Blaauwendraat 14th
Triple Jump - Kyle Ancheta SILVER, Kyle Lefort 7th
Shot Put - Luke Dillman 9th, Brad Carragher 11th
Weight Throw - Luke Dillman GOLD, Brad Carragher SILVER, Trevor Blaauwendraat 12th
Pentathlon - Kyle Lefort SILVER, Ben Fowler 6th, Troy Wilson 9th

Full Results can be found at:http://www.trackie.com/track-and-field/Results/2015-aus-championships/3860/