By Jeff Powalisz
Add another segment to the Idris Payne highlight reel.
The junior sprinter from Fordham Prep in New York City broke the Northeastern 400-meter record not once, but twice at the New Balance Armory Collegiate Invitational last weekend in New York.
Competing in the preliminary rounds on Friday, Payne eclipsed the 47-second barrier with a time of 46.99, which broke former Husky Michael Ferrari’s record of 47.75, set during the 1979-1980 season.
Payne’s beat Lance Wigfall (Montclair St.) and Ryan Westman (Rutgers University), who placed second and third respectively with times of 47.07 and 47.85, also broke the meet record of 47.04, set by NY Tech’s Orville Taylor in 2002.
“Everything went good, I had good rest both nights,” Payne said. “This is definitely one of the biggest things that has happened to me at NU. I just need to train right and eat right now and prepare for the nationals. Everything that my coaches tell me now will help me in the long run.”
His ring of success at the school continued in the finals round on Saturday, when he lowered his already remarkable time to 46.71, and at the same time increased his lead over all competition.
For his efforts, Payne was named the Athlete of the Week by the NEICAAA on Feb. 16.
“Idris is now ranked 13th in the country and he broke the school and meet records,” said Northeastern track coach Sherman Hart. “It was a good weekend all around for him. We went down there with the idea in mind that he had to run fast and that he had to run this meet and he ran well.”
Maryland’s Robert Frelow was the next closest at 47.76, while NC Central’s Austin Hogan finished in third place with a time of 48.30.
Junior thrower Derek Anderson was the only other Husky sent to the competitive meet, and he came up huge as well in placing second overall in the shot put.
He and meet champion Sam Segond of Rutgers rose above all other competitors with Segond’s throw of 57-02.00 beating Anderson’s strong 56-05.25.
“Derek threw extremely well,” Hart said. “It was probably the best series of throws by him all year and he was on the right path. I look for him to explode in the next few weeks.”
Next in line were Rowan University’s Robert Godfrey (52-02.75) and Manhattan College’s Anders Constantin (51-04.25).
The degree of Payne and Anderson’s success was measured by Northeastern’s 13th place ranking out of 33 teams at the event. With just two performers, the Huskies earned 18 points. St. Augustine’s College was the meet champion with 74.50.
“The competition was great,” Hart said. “There was a great atmosphere there in New York City. A lot of the best in the East were there.”
The team recently hosted a Heptathlon competition as well, with runners from various schools competing in the competition Thursday at the Reggie Lewis Center.
The Huskies claimed three of the top five spots, as Aaron Hill placed second with 4,417 total points, while Mike Couch (4089) and Chad Barboza (3,956) were fourth and fifth on the day, respectively.
“Chad and Aaron and Mike were pleasant surprises and they scored higher than we thought,” Hart said. “It was good competition overall. I’m very pleased with what they did.”
Also placing for Northeastern was Matt Kowalski, who came in at eighth with 3,234 points. The overall winner on the day was New Hampshire’s Craig Lange (4690).
Hill, who had a strong outing in the pole vault (15-00), also ran the 55 (6.9), 55-hurdles (8.3), 1,000 (3:33.40), as well as the long jump (19-10.25), shot put (34-07.75) and high jump (6-02.25).
Couch was strong in the long jump, where his leap of 20-02.05 was the second best on the day, while Barboza was instrumental in the high jump (6-04.75, best of the day). Kowalski was notable in the 1,000, where he was third among all performers with a time of 3:00:7.
The America East Championships will take place on Friday and Saturday at Boston University, starting at 10 a.m.
