Tufts Brings Home Hardware from ME

(2/20/2010) Full Results

For the 4th straight year, the Tufts University Men’s Track & Field team entered the New England Championships as the only team with every event covered. In the end, it would be exactly that balance and depth that would lead to their overall third place finish. It was truly a team effort this weekend at Bates College over the two days of competition. Only a balanced, versatile effort could scrap for a 3rd place finish given the teams solitary first and second place finishes by senior All American Jared Engelking.

Engelking's dominant showing in the pentathlon was the squad's only first place finish for the weekend. His PR of 3513 points in the event eclipsed the provisional qualifier for the National Championships and moved him up to 2nd All Time for Tufts. Engelking demonstrated his increased consistency as he was able to post a 120-point improvement in the event without any lifetime bests in the individual events. Senior Bobby Bardin and rookies Mike Blair and Tobie Reeuwijk provided back up for Engelking in the event. Both Bardin and Blair posted their own PRs for the event.

After a good night's sleep, the Jumbos returned to competition with renewed vigor. Junior Frank DeSalvo, a recent addition to the squad, narrowly missed advancing to the finals in the long jump. DeSalvo impressively moved up the rankings as he almost advanced out of the 1st of 3 flights in the long jump. Later in the day, freshman Gbola Ajayi would take a page out of DeSalvo's book for the triple jump. In only the 4th TJ competition of his life, Ajayi posted yet another PR and outperformed his seed. His leap of 44-6 was good enough for a 7th place finish as Ajayi was the top freshman jumper at the meet.

This trend of outperforming your seed and stepping up big became contagious for the Tufts Squad all weekend. In the 55m, senior Marc Soskin just missed the final but posted a great first race effort in the 55m to finish 16th overall. Freshman Lomie Cunningham continues to regain strength as he bettered his 11th place seed to finish 9th in the 200m, narrowly missing the finals.

In the 600m, senior Scott Brinkman and sophomore Connor Rose improved from 7th and 15th respectively. They both moved up in the rankings to score at 6th and 7th. Continuing in the Mid D events, the Jumbos were seeded for big points in the 800m and 1000m. And that is exactly what they saw. Ranked at 3rd, 5th, and 7th in the open 800m, a trio of half milers (including two freshmen) clocked in at 3rd, 5th, and 8th this weekend. Freshman Jeff Marvel led the way with an impressive final lap kicking up from 8th to 3rd in the last 100m.

Fellow freshman Sam Haney ran a similar race in the 1000m as he moved up from 10th to 5th in the final 200m to post a lifetime PR of 2:32.93. As the day began to wind down, it became all the more apparent that the team battle for 3rd place would be hotly contested as expected. A 6th place from senior Jesse Faller in the 3k and a gritty and intelligent 3rd place from freshman Matt Rand in the 5k gave the Jumbos small buffer heading in into the relays.

However, after two 9th place finishes in the first two relays both USM and Amherst were able to close the gap before the final event. The strong team of Hanrahan, Marvel, Hale, and Kirschner would need to post a season best performance to hold off the charging competition. With each leg of the 2-mile relay coming off open events, nothing was comfortable. After four great races, the Jumbos would kick home for a 3rd place finish in the final relay and secure the 3rd spot in the meet.

Next weekend the Tufts squad heads across town to the Open New England Championships hosted by Boston University. It will be a great opportunity to post some season and lifetime bests. Stay tuned because the season is only going to heat up from here.


Full Results