DMR Goes Provo at BU

(1/25/2008) Full Results

This weekend, the Jumbos took the long journey into Boston to compete at the Terrier Classic, hosted by Boston University. For Tufts, this was primarily a runner-only meet, as almost all of the field event athletes took a weekend of rest after a tough month of training, so that as many runners as possible could take advantage of the lightning-fast BU track facilities.

The only Men's event on Friday was the distance medley relay, and the members of that team surely did not dissapoint. Freshman Greg Pallotta led off the relay, running the 1200 in a very solid split of 3:05. Sophomore Andrew Longley then followed with a blazing 400 leg of 49-low. Sophomore Billy Hale then posted a very fast 1:55.8, and Jesse Faller closed in a lifetime-best split of 4:15, totalling a national qualifying time of 10:06.5, good for 4th place, and currently 2nd fastest in the country.

Saturday got off to a strong start with the 55M hurdles. Ikenna Acholonu and Trevor Donadt posted the two fastest division III times in the meet in the prelims, running 8.02 and 8.05. Acholonu improved his time to 7.95 in the finals, placing 5th overall.

Not to be left out, the Tufts distance squad took their places for the mile. Senior Dave Sorensen and Sophomore Jesse Faller both ran very similar 4:18 times, a 12 second PR for Sorensen. Both runner closed well, signifying that they can, and look to run faster in the future.

In the 400, Andrew Longley led the way with a time of 51.23, followed closely by Nate Scott in 51.90 and Derek Engelking in 52.34. All three runners chose to use this race to practice for future high-traffic races, and the experience will help them come championship season.

Billy Hale again led the way for the Tufts Mid-D runners, posting a 1:57.4, under a second off his previous PR. Alex Landy followed up, just missing breaking the 2:00 barrier for the first time in his career with a 2:00.09. Pallotta also doubled back with a respectable 2:02.10.

In the 200, Longley, running his third event in less than 24 hours, ran a 22.63, just .02 seconds off the school record. Running fresh, it is almost a foregone conclusion that Longley will run faster and break the school record before the end of the season. Also running the 200 were Marc Soskin in 23.63 and Colin Fitzgerald in 23.88.

Team Mid-D was then back in the 1000, led by Jesse Faller and high school teammate Matt Tirrell, in 2:35.9 and 2:36.0, respectively. Also running were Josh Gordon, who snuck just under the 2:40 barrier (2:39.33) and Corey Melnick (2:40.37).

The final event of the evening was the 5k. Chris Kantos was in the fast heat, and stayed with the pack through 3k. Although he fell off at the end of the race, Chris ran a solid 15:08 in his first 5k of the season. Nick Welch put in a strong 15:10 effort, and freshman Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot posted a solid 16:13 in his first 5k.

All in all, it was a strong weekend for the Jumbos, as almost 70% of the athletes PR'ed. The runners will be joined by all the field athletes at Bowdoin next weekend to face off against MIT, Bowdoin, Springfield, and Colby.


Full Results