Army West Point Athletics
Army West Point
Navy (Star Meet)
Men’s Track and Field Sees Narrow Loss to Navy at Star Meet
April 05, 2025 | Men's Track and Field
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Army West Point Men's Track and Field came up just short of reclaiming the Star at Ingram Field on Saturday, ultimately falling to Navy 99-104.
Overall, the Black Knights dominated the field events, outscoring Navy 8-3 in the long jump, triple jump, shot put, discus and hammer throw, five of the eight field events.
As for the track, Army scored more than the Midshipmen in only three of the 11 events, those being the 800m run, the 110m hurdles and the 3000m steeplechase.
The day opened strong for Army with a dominant performance in the men's hammer throw, where Robbie Manse led a sweep of the top three spots. Manse set a new personal best with a throw of 62.25m (204' 2"), placing him No. 5 on the Army all-time list.
Jake Nwosu earned second with a 55.30m throw and Jonathan Segujja finished third in the hammer throw with a 53.38 final mark.
Momentum carried into the long jump with another podium sweep. CJ Posey secured the win on his first attempt, eventually extending his lead with a jump of 7.29m (23' 11").
Javan Guevara-Cragwell finished second with a 7.14m jump in his final attempt and Caleb Smith finished third with a 7.09m jump.
The field dominance didn't stop there. The shot put crew followed suit with a third 1-2-3 sweep. Robbie Manse claimed his second victory of the day, breaking the 60-foot barrier for the first time with a throw of 18.56m (60' 10.75"), now No. 3 on the Army all-time list.
Luke Noonan earned second in the event with a 16.10m throw and Matt Palachak finished third with a 16.08m throw.
In the triple jump, Javan Guevara-Cragwell came through, breaking the meet record with a winning leap of 15.18m (49' 9.75") on his final attempt. James Beckett finished second in the event with a 15.01 mark on his first attempt.
Jake Nwosu captured his first career Star Meet title in the discus with a mark of 49.78m (163' 4"). The Black Knights finished 1-2 in the event with Jacob Bowersock finishing second with a 48.76m throw.
On the track, wins were harder to come by but several athletes earned top finishes. The highlight came in the men's 800m, where Kasen Jeitz and Ammon Smith timed their moves perfectly to earn a 1-2 finish, with Jeitz finishing with a 1:49.98 time while Smith finished with a 1:50.17 time.
In the 110m hurdles, Austin Hernandez finished with the top spot, winning with a personal best of 14.69s in the event.
Nathan Davis cruised to victory in the 3000m Steeplechase for his first career Star Meet win, finishing with an 8:51.38 final time. Davis also finished third in the 5000m run.
Up next, the Black Knights head to the TCNJ Invite & Multi in Ewing, New Jersey, beginning April 10 and lasting through April 12.
Hear From Coach Smith:
Today's loss stings. It hurts more than the indoor meet because this time we were really close and it came down to the very end. We just couldn't get it done. I don't feel like we failed to compete or that we were overmatched. It was the opposite of that. Our men showed great effort until the very end. We needed to win one more event and we couldn't do it. What we did do, was perform at a very high level. We set meet records and we put up NCAA qualifying marks. Our guys showed up. We started with men's hammer in the morning and we swept the top 3 places. Robbie Manse '26 won it with a new personal best mark of 62.25m (204' 2") which ranks him #5 on the Army all-time list. He was the best hammer thrower coming into the meet and he left better than he came in. There was little doubt that he was going to win once you saw him warming up. He put the meet away in the first round with a 60m throw and the guys piled on from there to complete the 1,2,3 sweep. We followed that up with another 1,2,3 sweep in the men's long jump. The group of guys we put out there are veterans of this meet and their experience showed today. CJ Posey '26 put the meet away on his very first attempt and we toyed with the idea of shutting him down so that he could focus on the high jump, but he wanted to take another couple of jumps so we let him go for it twice more. He fouled his 2nd jump but it was a big one, so we let him take one more and he jumped 7.29m (23' 11"). At that point, we knew he had it won so we moved on to the high jump where he jumped 2.07m (6' 9.5") which was equal to the winning jump but he lost the event title because he missed an attempt at the previous height. That was a 2 point swing. CJ has made himself into one of our most valuable performers. It won't be long before the marks that he is putting up are NCAA qualifying marks. He has those tools. Not to be undone, the guys in the shot put also put up a 1,2,3 sweep. Robbie Manse won his 2nd event with his first-ever throw over 60 feet in the shot put. His winning mark of 18.56m (60' 10.75") moves him to #3 on the Army all-time list. He was dominant today. In the triple jump, Javan Guevara-Cragwell set a meet record with his winning jump of 15.18m ( 49' 9.75") on his final attempt. He has said to our team before, that he will "show up and show out" at the championship meets. He was true to his word today. His winning jump today moves him to #5 on the Army all-time list and is the best jump by an Army triple jumper since 2012. Javan is one of our team captains and we expect those guys to perform when it counts. He has done that all year and today was more of the same. Jake Nwosu '25 won his first Star Meet title today in the men's discus (49.78m, 163' 4"). Jake has always been one of the strongest men in our program. He has struggled with mastering his technique. Today he put up the best series of his career and led us to a 1-2 finish capping off a remarkable day of field events for our men. On the oval, we won 3 events and swept only the men's 800m. In that event, Kasen Jeitz '26 and Ammon Smith '27 showed some real patience in following a quick early pace and closing down the race in the last 100 meters with Kasen pulling away in the final 10m to seal the win and the 1-2 sweep. Both of those guys have great finishing speed which they used to great effect today. Austin Hernandez won the 110m high hurdles with the best performance of his career (14.69s). Austin has struggled with consistency in the past but is now starting to figure things out. He is carrying some good momentum as we look ahead to the championship season in May. The final Army winner on the day was Nathan Davis '26 in the 3000m Steeplechase. Nathan has struggled with consistency coming off his NCAA championship cross country season last fall. The last few weeks of training however have been very good and today he cruised to the first Star Meet win of his career. His winning time of 8:51.38 was far from his best but he looked easy and comfortable in doing it. We brought him back in the 5000m at the end of the meet to see if he could win that race. He competed well and put himself in a position to win the race but ran out of gas over the last 400m and ended up finishing third. Our final score of 99 points was three short of what we needed to win the meet. I can look through a number of events to find where we could or should have scored more. Those missing points are a reminder of how important the little things are when you are trying to get to 102 points in this meet. We didn't miss by much today and the guys know it. There is more work to be done.
Players Mentioned
