The York University Lions men's and women's track and field teams finished in fourth and fifth place, respectively, at the 2018 OUA championships hosted by the University of Windsor at the St. Denis Centre in Windsor, Ont.
 
Following a strong opening day of competition, in which the Lions won six medals, they came back equally as impressive on Saturday with another six podium finishes, including three gold medals. The men's team missed out on the bronze medal by half a point, scoring 99 points to the 99.5 by the host Lancers.
 
The day began in record-breaking fashion for the Lions as Nicholas Fyffe won his fourth straight OUA triple jump title with a new conference mark of 15.17m, surpassing the previous best distance of 15.13m that former York great Marlon Nangle recorded in 2007. It was his second medal of the meet as he also won the bronze in the long jump on Friday. Placide Ilunga finished just off the podium in fourth place with a personal-best mark of 13.73m, which he achieved on his final attempt.
 
Also winning her second medal, and first gold, was Holly Pitters, who finished first in the women's triple jump with a personal-best mark of 12.52m, her first title in the event. The result was a tremendous one for the fifth-year athlete, who was the favourite to repeat as champion in the long jump on Day 1 but came up just short, finishing two centimetres behind the champion to take the silver medal. Bailey Francis also earned points for the team with a sixth-place result.
 
The third gold of the day for the Lions came in the 60m, where Xavier Joseph ran 6.86 seconds to shock the field and cross the finish line in first place. Teammate Xavier Jehovah finished just off the podium in fourth place with a time of 6.95 seconds.
 
Samuel Adams reached the podium for the second straight year in the pole vault, again winning the silver medal by clearing 5.01m on his third try.
 
The Lions men's and women's 4x400m relay teams both won bronze medals to close out the competition. Nicolette Witherspoon, Marvelous Agbonwaneten, Courtney Dwyer and Christy Ihunaegbo ran a 3:47.94 to cross the finish line in third place in a very talented pool, and immediately after that Daniele Orsini, Tohma Van Bergen, Mark Hutchinson and Jehovah benefitted from two teams ahead of them taking each other down and also crossed in podium position in a time of 3:24.16.
 
Jehovah and Van Bergen, along with Quinn Charles and Dereck Djan, were also part of the 4x200m relay team that finished in fourth place.
 
Fyffe, Pitters, Joseph and Adams all earned OUA all-star honours for their top-two finishes.
 
Next up for the Lions are the U SPORTS championships, which will take place back at the University of Windsor in two weeks. All gold and silver medallists from this past weekend, as well as auto qualifiers and top 12 athletes in U SPORTS, will compete at the national meet.