Jumbos Roll at Stampede, Bradley Ties School Record

(2/6/2009) See more Photos     Full Results

The Tufts Stampede, though not the last home indoor competition of the 2009 season, marked the final home meet before the New England Championships for the Jumbos. With the additions of a few competitive programs late in the week, it became a very competitive meet with schools from all over the Northeast in all divisions dropping big performances. Building on the strong showing of last week at Bowdoin, the Jumbos continued to drop PRs and qualifiers across the board.

With a 22.92 win over a deep field in the 200m, senior Phil Rotella continued his impressive season. Phil is currently ranked third in the region with his 22.55 from the Terrier Classic. It will be exciting to see him square off against the other top New England sprinters in two weeks as he has become one of the strongest and most consistent at the distance.

A trio of Jumbo 800 runners continued to impress as junior Scott Brinkman and freshman Connor Rose both PRed and junior Billy Hale notched a season best. Led out by Alumni-Coach Nate Cleveland through a perfectly paced opening 400m in 54, it was Billy leading the train at the halfway point. Both he and Connor would finish in 1:57 in 7th and 8th places, respectively. In just his first season of indoor track, Connor has shown excellent growth, and Hale's time is ahead of where he was at this point in 2008. But it was the strong close that has become somewhat of a regular appearance in Scott's races that led him to a strong third place finish in 1:55.87.

Not satisfied with last week's across the board PRs, the distance squad again put forth gutsy races and came away with great results. Freshman Scott McArthur and Erik Antokal, both of whom dropped big PRs in the 5k last week at Bowdoin, lowered their bests in the 3k this week. Their improvement thus far has been phenomenal--and it's only early February. Feeling stronger and stronger each day as he comes back from a winter break injury, junior Ryan Lena showed he's nearing top form as he put up a huge season best of 8:55.83--just seconds off his lifetime PR--taking second in the race and, most importantly, getting under the New England qualifying mark of nine minutes. His best races are without doubt ahead of him as his workouts progress--and we won't have to wait till outdoor for that to come to fruition. Finally, late in the meet, sophomore Chris Brunnquell made a valiant effort at the qualifying time of 15:35 in the 5k, coming up a bit short, and classmate Anthony Pellitierri dropped a McArthur-esque 33 second PR. With more races like today, both will be hitting those goal times in the near future.

Where did these stellar performances come from? There is no doubt that they were fueled by the awesome performance early in the meet of senior captain James Bradley in the high jump. Starting at a higher opening height, Bradley clear 2.06m to tie a 35 year old school record and shoot him up to third in the National ranks. With teammates and competitors alike cheering him on, James had an excellent look at 2.08 on his third attempt that had the whole crowd holding their breath. Perhaps most remarkable about Bradley's season thus far is the consistency with which he has performed.

The throwing core must have caught onto the momentum of the high jump as four Jumbos christened a new Tungsten SP with PRs. As Jared Engelking, Skip Pagel, and Alex Gresham all posted lifetime bests, freshman Matt Williams battled sickness to break the 46 foot barrier for the first time in a third place finish--all in between trips to bathroom to throw up. On the runway, junior Ikenna Acholonu came back from his sub-8 second win in the hurdles (his second in as many weeks) to qualify for New Englands in the triple jump with a leap of 13.35m.

Closing out the meet was the hotly contested mile relay. The group of Hale, Colin Fitzgerald, Bradley, and Rotella got out hard in each of their legs and held off a strong Springfield team to win in a season-best 3:26.

With the post-season just around the corner, the Jumbos are right where they want to be: improving from week to week and ready to throw down at the New England Championships in just under two weeks. That's not to say there isn't work yet to be done--far from it. They will continue to hammer workouts in the next few weeks, and will travel with a split squad to meets at Boston University and MIT next weekend. The energy on the team is high, as all are excited to be part of what has already proven to be a great 2009 season. It can only get better.


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