Bucknell men’s track & field enters the 2025-26 campaign with its deepest team in ten years and well-supplied and invested to break apart the Patriot League’s current ruling triumvirate of Army, Boston, and Navy. Every position group is stacked with young and veteran talent eager to return Bucknell to its historically place among the conference’s elite. The Bison finished fourth at last year’s indoor and outdoor championships.
The sprints group is loaded with premium talent and veteran returners. Garrett Backus, Cooper Hyken, and Luke Petryna headline the 100-meter and 200-meter runners and form the core of an excellent 4x100-meter relay quartet. Preston Lubeski and Amani Brown pace the longer sprints as a dynamic duo.
Ethan Knight holds the top banner in the hurdles after scoring in the Patriot League Outdoor Championships. Luis Colmenares-Bittar just missed the finals last year and already looks much improved from last season. Nick Bouril and Ethan Fianco are two freshmen who have the coaching staff and team in a buzz
Hayden Singer leads the middle distance group. Jayson Harmer will medically redshirt the indoor season but should return hale and healthy for the outdoor campaign. JP Byrnes has been a consistent contributor. Freshman Colin Ruether has shone during preseason practices.
Henry Didden and Ethan Pratt-Perez enter the track & field season after impressive cross country campaigns and will headline the long distance contingent. Didden scored in the 5,000-meter and 10,000-meter races, and Pratt-Perez provided points in the steeplechase. Freshmen Copper Hollinger and Ryan Pepperman flashed this fall and will look to replicate in the winter and spring.
The jumps group features plenty of talent. Sophomore CJ Simbiri enjoyed a fabulous freshman campaign, which saw him enter the top ten in school history for the triple jump. Momo Peters and Josh Tipton are two skilled long jumpers. Joel Langdon, a local product from Milton, jumped 6-6 in high school. Jeffrey Cianfrocca, a captain, leads the returning high jumpers.
The throws group, led by captain Wade Shomper, is arguably the deepest on the team. Shomper is the conference’s defending champion in the outdoor shot put and finished third in the discus last year. He owns the school record in both indoor and outdoor shot put.
Plenty of other league scorers return. Braden Pulver notched in the hammer and shot put last season. Keenan LaMontagne placed fourth in the discus at the conference championships last year. Aiden Tacker ranked in the hammer and weight events.
Men’s javelin is the only group without a current all-time top ten thrower in Ryan Protzman’s impressive ranks. A trio of freshmen, Julius Catuogno, Colin Krause, and Ronald Morgan, should change that situation. Morgan is a versatile athlete who will see usage beyond the javelin.
The freshman class boasts considerable depth, with Owen Allen and Alex Napolitano providing the push. Alex Polinek is the top rookie shot putter and discus thrower.
The pole vault is at its deepest point in years. Gabriel Pecaitis was fifth in the indoor championships, Lucas Williams finished eighth at the same event, and Michael Chernova is another option. All three looked sharp at the annual Orange & Blue Scrimmage.
The decathlon and heptathlon have two impressive candidates in Will Feddeler and Andrew Tandler. Feddeler finished eighth at indoor championships, and Tandler made the all-time top ten in the decathlon.
Coach Donner arranged a neat schedule for the season. Bucknell will stay home four times during the indoor campaign and venture to meets hosted by Penn State and the University of Pennsylvania. Boston hosts the Patriot League indoor championships this year.
The outdoor slate is a plum. Bucknell will host the annual Bison Outdoor Classic - one of the largest meets on the East Coast and face Binghamton in a dual meet already titled the Battle of the BUs! The Patriot League Outdoor Championships, hosted by Navy, were pushed back two weeks, allowing the Bison to send full squads to the historical Penn Relays. In past years, the league championships were one week after the Penn Relays. Additionally, the later league championships narrow the gap for any athletes competing in the NCAA East First Round. The ECAC-IC4As Championships were moved to the regular season, enabling their return to the Bison schedule.
The men’s team has the ideal balance of veterans and rising talent. The program’s direction is trending upwards, and the Bison look to crash the party of Army, Boston, and Navy. If the team can stay healthy, Bucknell will return to the Patriot League’s top three.