By Jeff Powalisz

Led by the work of junior sprinter Idris Payne, the Northeastern men’s track team finished second at Sunday’s Great Dane Classic in New York City.

NU coach Sherman Hart, however, wasn’t thrilled with the outcome.

“I’m very upset about this one,” he said. “I can take a loss, but we lost this one, there’s no getting around it. We had about 10 events that we could have done better in, and if we had done the little things in about three of those, we could have won.”

The Huskies, finishing with 104.66 points, fell only to Albany, a perennial favorite in the meet, which took the championship with 128.25 points.

Monmouth University (90), Southern Connecticut State (72.2) and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (67.25) rounded out the top five schools for the event.

Payne won the 400, took second in the 200, and was the anchor in the winning 4×400 team to single-handedly push Northeastern ahead and lead the team to a very successful finish on the day.

Payne, who set a Northeastern record of 21.70 in the 200 during the indoor season and a record of 47.06 seconds in the 400 meter trials at the IC4A Championship, has been an important member of the team since his freshman year.

Another key finish for Northeastern on the day was Anderson’s throw in the shot put, which at 57-03.00 was well ahead of any competition. Peter Salvatore (51-09.25) and Kyle Hirschklau (49-00.25), both of Monmouth, were second and third, respectively.

“Idris Payne was tremendous in all three of his events while Derek Anderson had a breakthrough in the shot put with 57 feet,” Hart said. “Those were great performances.”

Obara Emenike, at 6.46, was second in the 55 meter dash for Northeastern, with Bismark Osei (6.51) and Steve Langton (6.53) coming in for fourth and fifth place finishes.

“Steve Langton has been doing well in the long jump and that’s a plus,” Hart said. “He continues to jump better.”

Payne’s times of 21.86 in the 200 and 47.68 in the 400 fueled the Huskies, which immediately added 18 points to their score and boosted much confidence all around.

While the Huskies gained no points in the one-mile run or 800 meter run, Roscell Lopez-Pitts added three to the total score with a sixth-place finish in the 500 at 1:05.75.

In the 1,000, Jon Seymour of Southern Connecticut came up big with a 2:33.19 winning time, followed closely behind by many runners, including Husky Thomas Pratt, who finished in third at 2:33.86.

Peter Jasmin was fourth in the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 7.77, trailing winner Brandon Hicks of Rider University (7.52).

Led by Payne, and the work of Carlos Garcia, Lopez-Pitts and Christian Tirella, the Huskies finished first in the 4×400 with a time of 3:19.00.

Albany, however, finished ahead of Northeastern in both the 4×800 relay and distance medley. Their winning time of 7:52.33 in the 4×800 beat out Northeastern’s (3rd, 8:01.48) and third-place time of 10:36.81 in the distance beat out the fifth-place Husky finish of 10:40.95.

Aaron Hill and Michael Couch were among a three-way tie for second place in the high jump at 15-3, while Ryan Cahill came in alone at sixth at 14-03.25. Langston had another key finish for the Huskies in the long jump with a huge second-place jump of 22-05.75, just behind Monmouth’s Troy Dennis (22-09.25).

The Huskies are next in action on Jan. 30, when they host the Adidas Boston Indoor Games at 4:30 p.m.