NESCAC Team Champions -- Tufts, Williams Tie for 1st

(4/28/2007) See more Photos     Full Results

The Tufts Jumbos overcame all odds to force a tie with Williams at the NESCAC Championship Meet; both teams reached a monstrous total of 197.5 points. From the early-morning javelin to the late-afternoon relays, the day was filled with gutsy, passionate performances that could only have come from a team that wanted to and believed it could win this meet.

In the 9:00am javelin competition, senior captain David McCleary started the team on the right note with a personal record-smashing PR of 53.96m (177' 0"). Juniors Derek Engelking and Nick Gentilli and senior David Igbalajobi followed closely behind, heaving the spear to distances of 52.52m (172' 4"), 51.35m (168' 6"), and 47.03m (154' 3"). Their 2nd-, 4th-, 5th-, and 8th-place finishes brought 17 points to the team.

Immediately after he finished his preliminary throws in the javelin, McCleary made his way to the starting line of the 110m hurdles where he joined freshman-phenoms Ikenna Acholonu, Jared Engelking, and Trevor Donadt. All four qualified for the finals, and Acholonu led the way as he took the NESCAC crown with a time of 15.30. (This was .01 off of his new lifetime-best, which he set in his trial heat.) Engelking, Donadt, and McCleary finished closely behind in 3rd, 4th, and 5th place, respectively; McCleary's time of 15.93 was a half-second PR.

At the same, senior captain Fred Jones was leading his teammates in the first wave of many points to come in the jumping events. Jones lept to a season best of 6.98m (22' 11") and sophomore Skip Pagel landed a distance of 6.25m (20' 6.25"). The two claimed 2nd and 8th place.

Justin Chung, in the grueling 10,000m run--the first scored running event of the day--ran a strong race in the tight front pack; taking the lead at many points and not falling back until the last few hundred meters of the race, Chung finished the event for a 6th-place time of 32:18.02.

Soon after, junior Dave Sorensen and senior Chad Uy brought Tufts depth to the 3000m steeplechase. Sorensen ran an exciting breakaway race with the eventual winner, Peter Kosgei of Hamliton, and finished in 2nd place with his second PR in as many weeks; he improved his NCAA-qualifying time to 9:17.52. Uy also ran his heart out, finishing with a 17-second season best of 9:47.10 and earning the team an 8th-place point.

In between the two distance events was the trials of the 100m dash. Senior Mickey Ferri and sophomore Colin Fitzgerald were the two Jumbos to make it to finals--sophomore Philip Rotella, who ran very fast despite being sidelined for months with an injury, and freshman Andrew Longley finished in 9th and 10th, respectively. In the finals, Fitzgerald ran to a big personal best of 11.18, and Ferri ran a fast time of 11.26; they took 3rd and 6th, respectively.

The high jump began soon after the first round of field events, with junior Jeremy Arak and sophomore James Bradley leading teammates Nathan Scott and Isaiah Paramore in total dominance of the event. Paramore and Scott both cleared 1.86m (6' 1.25"), with Scott taking 3rd and Paramore taking 5th on misses. Arak and Bradley both cleared the bar at 1.91m (6' 3.25") and then moved the bar up to an NCAA provisional-qualifying height of 2.03m (6' 7.75"). Both came close but did not clear, and because a tie is not allowed in the event, Arak ended up with the victory at a height of 1.92m (6' 3.5").

The other early-morning field event, the hammer throw, featured senior Tyler Groff's massive three-meter season best and 1.5-meter PR of 41.61m (136' 6"). With each of his tosses better than its preceding one, Groff ended up earning the team an 8th-place point.

Ferri and Fitzgerald joined Longley and Fred Jones in the 4x100m relay, in which Tufts was seeded 3rd with a time of 43.17. The foursome ran to a huge season best of 42.55. This 2nd-place finishing time is the second-fastest time run in Tufts history and was another one of the countless little upsets that contributed to the team's eventual victory.

Ferri, Fitzgerald, and Rotella also returned later in the day for the 200m dash. All three were well under the 23-second barrier, with Rotella finishing just out of scoring position with a time of 22.83 and Ferri and Fitzgerald earning 5th and 6th place, respectively. Ferri's time of 22.45 was a quarter-second faster than he had ever run before.

Freshman Jesse Faller (remember that name--it comes up again at the end of the writeup) was the lone Tufts scorer in the 1500m run. His trademark kick brought him to a lifetime-best time of 4:03.09 and earned the team another 8th-place point.

The 400m dash was the next event on the track, with freshman Scott Brinkman and high jump runner-up James Bradley finishing a very close race in 4th and 7th, respectively.

In the 800m run, senior captain Nate Cleveland and classmate Dan Sullivan sprinted to the line of this closely contested race. Both broke the 1:58 mark, with Cleveland finishing 6th in 1:57.73 and Sullivan finishing 9th in 1:57.97.

The 400m hurdles--one of the last running events of the day--was another display of Tufts' depth. Freshman Trevor Donadt ran a huge PR to win the first heat and take 7th place overall. In the second heat, Andrew Longley (55.52), Nathan Scott (56.75), and David McCleary (56.94) muscled their way to 2nd, 3rd, and 5th place, respectively. McCleary's third personal record of the day was .3 seconds faster than he had ever run, and his first time under 57 seconds in the event.

Jones returned later in the day to the triple jump--one of the day's deepest and most hotly contested events. Finishing 2nd with a leap of 14.19m (46' 6'25"), he was followed closely behind by junior Dan Marcy, who, still recovering from a hamstring injury and jumping from a short approach, landed a 5th place leap of 13.94m (45' 9"). Acholonu, coming off of his hurdle victory, earned 8th place with a big season-best of 13.56m (44' 6").

Pagel also came back later in the day to join junior Kenneth Kang and freshman James Rogers in the pole vault top-eight. Pagel tied his PR with a vault of 4.04m (13' 3") and Kang and Rogers tied for 5th with both clearing 3.74m (12' 3.25").

In the final open running event of the day, the 5000m run, senior Josh Kennedy won a convincing victory with a time 15:04.03. Running with the lead pack right from the start, and eventually taking the race into his own hands and breaking away, Kennedy secured Tufts a 6-point lead going into the final two events.

An atmosphere of excitement filled the Dragone Track facility as word spread that Tufts was within range of finally dethroning Williams--a true dynasty that had won all but one of the last fifteen NESCAC championships. James Bradley toed the line for the 4x400m relay, but was forced to put his sweats back on after the gun fired twice due to a questionable false start call. No team was disqualified, and when the race finally went off, the foursome of Bradley, Longley, Nathan Scott, and Dustin Virgilio ran to a fast time of 3:21.02. Right behind Williams.

In a classic battle between two incredibly deep and dominant Tufts and Williams teams, the NESCAC championship came down to the final event. Tufts had a four-point lead going into the distance medley relay, and was within reach of winning the NESCAC championship for the first time since 1991. Dave Sorensen ran the 1200m leg of the relay, handing off in the middle of a large pack with Williams at its front. Nate Cleveland sprinted his heart out in the 400m leg, maintaining Tufts's position, and handed off to freshman Billy Hale, who had run the 800m run earlier in the meet. As the race opened up, Hale kept with his pack and handed off to freshman Jesse Faller in good position.

As the mile-leg progressed, it became clear that Williams and Bowdoin were going to duel for first and second as Faller, Trinity, and Middlebury were going to fight for the next three positions. With every single member of the trackmeet--coaches, spectators, and athletes--filling the infield and lining the track, sprinting back and forth to cheer their teams and push their mile runners along, Williams and Bowdoin entered a dead sprint for first, and Faller and Middlebury entered a dead sprint for third.

The roar was deafening; the crowd pushed into lane two of the home straightaway to scream its lungs out. The first dead-sprint came, with Williams breaking away from Bowdoin to take the event. Every single person at that meet knew that Faller had to outsprint Middlebury. With a clenched face and eyes filled with fire, Faller sprinted harder than he ever had before to edge out Middlebury by mere tenths of a second. He was mobbed at the finish line by his teammates who, together, had just tied Williams for 1st.

Tufts only had three individual winners out of the 21 events contested. So what won the meet for Tufts? It was an extra centimeter in the long jump for an 8th-place point; it was a lean at the line for a 5th place finish in the 400m hurdles; it was a wall of screaming Jumbos lining the home straightaway at the finish of the distance medley. Tufts Track has had this meet on its mind every day since the first captains' practice in September; the full-time commitment--both physical and mental--of every athlete and coach on the team turned an on-paper victory for Williams into a true triumph for Tufts. Every member of the roster was, and always will be, a part of this victory.

Tufts is in action again next Weekend, May 3rd-5th, at the Division III New England Championship in Springfield, MA. GO JUMBOS!!


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