Faller Earns NESCAC Athlete of the Week with 10k Effort

(4/5/2010)

Over the years, members of the Tufts University men's outdoor track & field team have traveled to some major meets and preformed well. Tufts senior Jesse Faller (Burlington, MA) joined the club last Friday, and his 10K time in Princeton, New Jersey earned him NESCAC Track Performer of the Week.

Back in 2005, Matt Lacey ran a school record time of 30 minutes, 4.2 seconds in the 10,000 meters at the IC4A meet hosted by Princeton University. It was an NCAA automatic qualifying mark. Earlier that season at the Penn Relays, Lacey ran 14 minutes, 19.37 seconds in the 5,000 meters for a school record. The time also met the automatic qualifying standard for the NCAA championship. In the 10K at the Penn Relays, Nate Brigham set a then-school record with a 30:14.09 performance. That also was within the NCAA automatic qualifying standard.

Five years later, Faller ran in the first 10,000 meters race of his career at Princeton's Sam Howell Invitational on Friday. His 30:13.97 time is second only to Lacey's '05 10K in Tufts outdoor history. At a shade over six seconds faster than the 30:20 NCAA automatic qualifying mark, Faller's finish is currently one of three NCAA automatic times in the nation. He placed second out of 22 runners in the Sam Howell race outkicking a number of athletes with his 63 second final lap.