NORTH DARTMOUTH, Mass. – Jake Velazquez, Tyler Bolaske, and Eden Damis each etched their name into the Keene State College record books as Little East Conference individual champions on Sunday afternoon when the Owls competed at the 2025 outdoor track and field league championships at Cressy Field, hosted by the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

KSC had 24 medalists overall and set three news school records, with the aforementioned trio accounting for 36 of the Owls' 89 points on the men's side as they finished fifth as a team, but were only 13 points behind third-place Rhode Island College in what was a bunched-up pack for most of the day until host UMass-Dartmouth (137.5) and the University of Southern Maine (133 points) pulled away, with the Corsairs nabbing the team championship in the end.  Behind six runner-up event finishes, the KSC women nabbed a runner-up team finish with 97.5 points, 11.5 ahead of third-place University of Massachusetts-Boston.  Both teams improved on a season ago, with the women moving up three spots from fifth to second, only behind the University of Southern Maine, who again defended their team title with 143 points.  Although the men remained in fifth, they totaled 31 more points than last season.

Velazquez's individual victory in a senior-laden 10,000-meter race got KSC off and running on the right foot at the championship, which was held one day later than expected due to rain.  The fifth-year University of Massachusetts-Lowell transfer and Keene High School product won by over 30 seconds, finishing in an LEC record 31.33.83.  He is the 11th outdoor winner of the event in school history, but the first since 2018 when Ben MacDonald was victorious in 32:42.92.

Tyler Bolaske collected two medals on the day, one a gold in the 1,500 meters in 4:06.67 as he moved up a spot from last year's runner-up finish in the event.  He is the eye-popping 15th Owl outdoor 1,500 meter LEC champion, and next year will try to become the fourth to win multiple (Mark Miller, Dave Bridgewater, and Ryan Widzgowski have previously).

KSC's third individual gold came from Eden Damis in the tiple jump, as he outdid Garrett Jones of Rhode Island College with a 13.50 mark on his third attempt.  Jones had posted a 13.35 meter jump on his second try, but otherwise was at 13.14 meters or worse.  Damis improved substantially on his first three tries, going from 12.66 meters to 13.34 meters to the event-winning 13.50 meters.  He is only the Owls' third triple jump victor at the LEC outdoor championships, joining Craig Stuart (2006) and Frank Radlof (2008).

The Owls' scoring contingent on both the men's and women's sides included many silver medalists.  KSC placed second six times on the women's side, including two relay silvers as the 4x100 team of Molly Lu McKellar, Caroline Cooper, Drea Defreitas, and Keely Giordano was second in 50.16 and the 4x800 team of Sarah Ames, Eleni Papadapoulos, Maggie St. John, and Anna O'Reilly second in 10:26.39.  Many of those Owls also scored individually, as Cooper was second in the triple jump (10.71 meters) and Defreitas fourth (10.45 meters).  McKellar ran the 100-meter hurdles in 15.37, good for a second-place finish, while Ames was less than six seconds behind Haley Oliver (Rhode Island College) as the runner-up in the 1,500 meters (4:58.24).  Oliver also took the 5,000 meters, edging St. John, who posted a New England Division III qualifying time of 18:39.74.  Sara Christian added a bronze in the 10,000 meters (39:17.36), as did Giordano in the 100-meter dash by eclipsing Nicole Geyselaers' 2002 mark of 12.40 by two hundredths of a second (12.38).  O'Reilly nabbed a third-place time in the 1,500 meters, right behind Ames in 5:00.76.  A handful just missed podium finishes, as Kallie Warner placed fourth in the 10K (39:31.54), Aurora Couto fourth in the steeplechase (12:38.70), McKellar fourth in the 400 hurdles (1:12.19), St. John fourth in the 1,500 meters (5:01.71), and Autumn Boisvert fourth in the 5,000 meters (19:03.09).  Giordano added a 26.09 fifth-place mark in the 200 meters and Ames a fifth-place time in the 800 meters (2:28.25).

In addition to their three winners, the men had a pair of silver medal performances from Kyle Thomas, including a school record 10.64 finish in the 100-meter dash to break his previous record of 10.77 set on March 29.  He was also second in the 200 meters in 21.76, accounting for 16 total team points in those events.  It would have been 20 – and eight more for the Owls, essentially the difference between fourth and fifth – if it were not for senior Ethan Shain of USM, who won the 100 in 10.48 and the 200 in 21.41.
The 4x100 meter relay team of Aidan Law, Sean Von Ranson, Jonathan DeAguiar, and Thomas also broke their own school record mark set earlier this season on April 6, finishing in in 42.13 after previously posting a time of 42.37.  Remarkably, first and third place in the race was separated by just two hundredths of a second as UMass-Dartmouth and RIC's foursomes each finished in 42.11.

A slew of bronze medals also helped keep the Owl men in contention for quite a while, as Nicholas Terranova finished the steeplechase in 10:07.56, behind a pair of seniors (Davis Preston of UMD and Ben Lockwood of RIC).  Bolaske added to his day, and medal count, by running to a third-place time of 15:36.45 in the 5,000 meters while Law was third in the 200-meter dash (21.96) and third in the long jump (6.61 meters).  Law's long jump mark was just .01 meters behind the winning 6.62 meter jump by Michael Collins Jr. of Eastern Connecticut State University.  Both previously competed in the same event at the NCAA national indoor championships, where Law had a better mark and was a Second Team All-American.  Rookie Jayden Baker picked up a bronze in the shot put, tossing 14.44 meters.  Ancil Alexander, a freshman from UMass-Dartmouth, won both that event (16.43 meters) and the discus (52.94 meters).

"Today we competed at a championship level," said KSC head coach Dan Roark.  "We had athletes with school records, a few champions, and many medalists.  The women taking second was a big win.  The men getting fifth I don't think accurately showed the effort today…both sides there were close battles.  Last year, both teams were fifth at this meet.  We improved on both sides.  We came out and competed well, and we are starting to be the team we imagined at the beginning of the year."

The KSC men have won three outdoor championships in program history (1998, 1999, 2000) while the women are still in search of their first.

The Owls are back in action this coming Saturday and Sunday (May 3-4) when qualified athletes travel to New London, Conn. for the New England Division III Championships hosted by the United States Coast Guard Academy.