Third Time's a Charm - Jumbos Perform Well at BU

(2/24/2007) Full Results

For the third time this season the Tufts University men's track & field team ventured across town to Boston University in search of some fast times and solid marks. Seek and you shall find. Twenty Jumbos suited up this past weekend looking to build upon their early season performances. With some of the fiercest competition of the year to contend with, expectations were high and results played in tune with expectations.

Friday saw competition begin with the 35lb. weight throw where Junior, Joe Brown, continued his strong season with a 16th place finish. His toss of 52-2.5 (15.91m) was less than 1' off his personal best. With one meet left to the season, Brown will continue his fight for those elusive few centimeters between him and a national qualifier. Building off Joe's quick start, a quartet of freshmen worked to keep the Jumbos on solid footing.

Nick Welch (Fr) would be the first Tufts distance runner to toe the line on Friday. Stepping on the track, Welch was going to do everything in his power to drop a serious PR in the 5,000m. Coming off his 5th place finish at the Division III meet the week before he was all too prepared for the fight; however, his legs would have other ideas. He just missed a PR in only the 3rd 5k of his short career, but certainly not due to a lack of will or effort.

Welch's efforts would not be for naught as the trio of on-looking freshmen hurdlers would build off of his energy in their races. Ikenna Acholonu and Jared Engelking would both run races qualifying them for the next day's semifinals, while Trevor Donadt would just miss the cut finishing in 18th place. Acholonu would go on to qualify for the finals and finish 8th in his first Open New England Championships with a PR of 7.84 seconds. When all the dust had settled, the Jumbo hurdlers were the 3rd, 5th, and 6th best freshmen hurdlers in New England, regardless of division.

Next on the track would be a pair of half milers. The dissimilar duo of senior tri-captain Nate Cleveland and freshman Billy Hale would find themselves in the same heat. Cleveland, bringing experience and veteran poise the track, would toe the line beside the younger and untested Hale. Let it be said that untested should in no way be misconstrued for unable. Both Hale and Cleveland would quickly find themselves tested, while also promptly prove themselves worthy. Cleveland working his way through the pack, found himself taking 3rd in his heat with a PR of 1:54.77, just missing the automatic finals qualification that top 2 in each heat are rewarded with. Hale would follow in tow with a PR of his own and an ECAC qualifying of 1:56.72. Cleveland's race would qualify for the finals as the next fastest time not automatically qualified, where he would finish in 10th place on the day.

Another senior/freshman pairing would be next to test their limits as Mickey Ferri (Sr) and Andrew Longley (Fr) both made bids at the Tufts 200m school record. Neither would take down Greg Hutton's 1993 record as both felt the after effects from the previous weeks efforts. Longley's 200, 400, 200, 4x400 quadruple and Ferri's 55, 200, DMR triple left them each a fraction of a second off the record.

Finishing off the first day of competition was Josh Kennedy (Sr) in the seeded section of the 5k. Set up well in the race by both Dan Vassallo of Colby and Curtis Wheeler of USM, Kennedy would fall off the pace at the 3k mark and bring it home in a respectable 15:06, good enough for 13th overall. The seeded 5k gave way to one of the days most impressive performances on the weekend as Providence College's Martin Fagan time trialed himself to a meet record 13:55.02, lapping the entire field en route.

Day two would be just as productive as its predecessor. Kicking off the meet were Chad Uy (Sr) and Dave Sorensen (Jr) in the unseeded 3k. Sorensen's race would be one of his best tactically and would result in a 4 second PR of 8:38.08, good enough for 1st in his section and 10th overall. Both Uy and Sorensen will be in search of solid 5k times at next weeks ECAC championships. On the runway, Senior tri-captain Fred Jones would better his season best, and national qualifying, jump by 3cm's jumping 14.42m (47-3.75). Closing the competition for the Jumbos would be the 4x400m relay team of Engelking, Longley, Cleveland, and Dustin Virgilio (Sr). Entering with a slower seed time of 3:27, the foursome would better that mark by over six seconds, aided by the sub 50 second split of Virgilio, finishing in a 3:21.22 in a hotly contested heat.

A similar sized squad will head to Middletown, CT next Friday and Saturday for the ECAC Championships hosted by Wesleyan University. There the Jumbos will compete against a slew of Division III schools spanning the entire eastern seaboard from Maine to Virginia. The competition should again be up to the task of pushing the Jumbos through to personal records and qualifying marks. Stay tuned for next week's installment of the TUT&F updates.



Full Results