School Records and National Qualifiers at New Englands

(5/2/2009) Full Results

Coming off a string of PRs at the NESCAC Championships, the Tufts Track and Field team headed to Springfield College for the Division III New England Championships this past weekend. Every year, this meet proves to be a big balancing act of the Jumbos. Coaches balance workloads from the previous week with needed recovery for the push to nationals. Athletes balance the workloads of finals and the focus required for a championship meet. Given the positive results of this weekends championships, it appears that the coaches and athletes alike successfully navigated the tightrope that is finals-week this season.

Electing to rest a few big names for this weekends races, the Jumbos headed west with a smaller squad than they took to the conference meet a week prior. Distance doublers Jesse Faller and Nick Welch as well as sophomore miler Jeff Ragazzini were all given the weekend to rest up. In addition, decathlete Skip Pagel stuck the 4x100 and PV after an incredibly active week at NESCACs. Even still, the Jumbos were not at a shortage for impressive performances.

That being said, the meet probably began with one of the least memorable performances. Junior decathlete Jared Engelking battle the elements for a paltry 12.05 to kick off this weekends decath. It was the slowest recorded 100m of his collegiate career. However, any good decathlete has the memory of a goldfish and moves on to the next event quickly. Engelking followed his slow 100m with the 2nd best LJ of his life (20-6.5), and three lifetime PRs in the SP (40-4), HJ (5-10.5), and 400m (51.37). After losing 87 points in the 100m alone, Engelking changed his fortune and ended on a Day 1 PR of 101 points (3282).

Going into Day 2, the decathletes, were greeted by another sizeable headwind. All throughout warm ups, it looked like Day 2 would start very similar to Day 1. Yet just as the athletes got set in their marks, the wind would die down. Powering out of the blocks, Engelking recorded a PR of 14.77 in the 110H, good enough for 12th in the nation currently. From there, there was no looking back. A lifetime PR in the discus (119-10) and two decathlon PRs in the PV (13-7.25) and Jav (162-2) put Engelking only 60 points behind his previous PR in just 9 events. After mustering up a 5:00.79 in the 1500m, his final score of 6582 was good enough for 2nd place in the meet and 2nd place on the Tufts All Time list.

The rest of his teammates took notice and followed up with their own great performances. In the LJ, juniors Jonathan Pak and Isaiah Paramore popped off some solid jumps. Pak PRd with a jump of 20-9 while Paramore nearly equaled his NESCAC mark with a jump of 21-1.5. At the same time sophomore, Alex Gresham was battling the rains to finish 6th in the hammer throw with a hurl of 162-2. Gresham has really come along this season as a hammer thrower. Finishing second at last weeks conference championships was a great feat for the sophomore. He will definitely be an athlete to watch in the years to come.

Two of Greshams classmates battle through their second consecutive 10k for 11th and 12th in the meet. Jerzy Eisenberg Guyot and Chris Brunnquell each followed up solid NESCAC 10ks with gutsy performances this weekend. Brunnquell took the lead just after the half way point to help keep the race honest. This effort took a little more out of his legs than expected, but was the right call at the time. He’s battle through to have a sophomore year that exceeded all expectations. Look for even bigger growth from these young runners next year.

After two full days of competition, one might have thought that the Jumbos had used up all their energy and stamina for the meet. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Senior Phil Rotella continued his dominant season with one of the best races of his career. He jump started the final day with a school record performance in the 100m dash clocking in at 10.90 seconds. His time knocked another 0.05 off of Greg Huttons 18 year old record. Rotella has really developed into a dominant sprinter with range from the 100m through the 400m.

He continued his successes at this meet by anchoring the 4x100m team to a season best time of 43.17 seconds. Lead off leg Skip Pagel, suited up for his first 4x100m relay since 7th grade. It was great to see him get out of the blocks a little better than he did at age 12.

After the mornings events, the Jumbos just continued to put together some very noteworthy and gutsy performances. Many Jumbos were not seeded to score in this years championships, but battle for serious points. Athletes scoring out of unseeded sections this weekend include Ben Crastnopol (400m), Trevor Donadt (400IH), Colin Fitzgerald (200m), as well as the 4x100m team.

It was a great meet for the Jumbos who entered this weekend a little shorthanded. Many great individual performances put the team in 3rd place for most of the meet behind Williams College and MIT. It was a battle that saw less that 10 points separate 3rd place and 7th place. In situations like that, places are usually decided by the little things like clean opening heights, solid handoffs, and good runways.

Tufts continues their season next weekend at UMass Amherst with the Open New England Championships. With the best of DI, DII, and DIII suiting up this weekend, it will be a great opportunity for everyone to come away with personal bests.


Full Results