From left to right, sophomore Anna Thomas, sophomore Tatum Lunsford and first-year student Tea Briggs, who are on the track and field sprint team. Photo courtesy of Lexi Smith.
University of Tampa’s track and field team starts its season with the Spartans Open meet.
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By Tiffany Bobadilla
TAMPA, Fla. — On Feb. 21, 2026, at Pepin Stadium, 11 universities traveled to Tampa for the annual Spartans Open meet. Universities such as Barry, Florida Gulf Coast, Stetson, Palm Beach Atlantic, Nova Southeastern, and Eckerd all gathered together for this exciting meet.
The top results of this meet were dominated by UTampa, Nova Southeastern, Lynn, and Barry University. UTampa’s runners placed top five in 16 out of 22 overall events that were run at this meet.
The meeting started at 4 p.m. with the 400-meter hurdles, an event that the University of Tampa dominated by taking places 1-5. The fastest clocked time for the women was a one-minute and one-second run by Allie Murphy, a senior on the UTampa track and field team. As the evening progressed, UTampa continued to show dominance and clocked outstanding times in various events.
The men’s 4×100-meter relay was run by Collin Kavulic, Daniel Raffin, Jayden Leonard, and Calvin Jordan with a time of 41.49. All running splits of 11 seconds, making the overall time a new program best. The previous school record was held on April 19, 2025, at the Sunshine State Conference Championships with a time of 41.98 seconds.
The men’s relay team wasn’t the only one that had a successful evening. The women’s 4×100-meter relay team led throughout the three exchanges of this race. The relay team of Sarah Martinez, Allison Murphy, Molly Morris, and Chloe Green clocked an impressive 47.83 seconds, earning them a win.
Meanwhile, UTampa clocked outstanding times in the area of short sprints, and the middle-distance sprinters also had impressive times. While the 400-meter race isn’t easy at all, UTampa’s runners glided all through those 400 meters. Eliezer Nicolas, a freshman on the UTampa team, finished as UTampa’s top performer with a time of 49.24 seconds.
“The 400-meter was very long but quick at the same time”, said Nicholas. “If I could change something about that race, I would change my start and come out a little bit faster.”
On the longer side of the track, many top performances were run in both the 3,000 and 1,500-meter races for both the men and women on the team. Elijah Rivera, a freshman on the UTampa team, secured a second-place overall finish with a time of eight minutes and 32 seconds for the 3,000-meter race, falling behind Siyabonga Mokgothu, a junior on Florida Gulf Coast University’s track team.
Will Cerrutti clocked a time of 3 minutes, 57 seconds for the 1,500 meters, earning UTampa a third-place overall finish. At the same distance on the women’s team, Hanna Diete, a sophomore, was a top performer for the team, scoring a second-place overall win with a time of 4:35.52.
From explosive sprints to hard-fought distance events, the track athletes on the UTampa team showed out. Based on the results of this meet, the track season is off to a strong start, setting the track for more personal records and school records.