Engelking Wins New England Pentathlon - Qualifies for Nationals

(2/19/2010)

A quartet of pentathletes kicked off the New England Championships this afternoon for the Jumbos. Senior captain Jared Engelking led the way with a new PR of 3513 points. His new PR was good enough to take the top spot as well as qualify him provisionally for the NCAA Championships next month. He managed to PR for the event without any individual event PRs. He did post 'pentathlon' PRs for the HJ and HH which helped power him to his 66 point victory.

Backing up Engelking was a trio of 3000+ point decathletes. Freshman Mike Blair added two Top 10 All Time performances to his resume this Friday with his pentathlon. His overall score of 3096 points and his HJ mark of 1.93m were both top 10 performances for Tufts Track and Field. Blair had a fantastic showing in the event as he posted collegiate PRs in 4 out of 5 of the events.

Only 64 points back from Blair was senior Bobby Bardin. After a slow start in the hurdles and an average performance in the LJ, Bardin finished with a flurry of strong performances. He PR'd by almost a 3 feet in the shot put and had a lifetime best in the HJ as well. In the end, Bardin PRed by over 100 points for the full pentathlon. Rounding out the competitors was sophomore transfer Tobie Reeuwijk. Reeuwijk struggled to find his groove for some of the day, but fought to an impressive 3023 points for the event.

In the end, the four multi-eventers did a fantastic job setting the tone for the Jumbos. Engelking's ten points got the team off to a strong start in the rankings while all four demonstrated that the team is capable of assembling some strong performances this coming weekend. It should be an exciting weekend so stay tuned.