Powerful Start, Strong Finish Highlight NEs for Jumbos

(4/30/2010) See more Photos     Full Results

Less than one week after their amazing team effort at the 2010 NESCAC Championships, the Jumbos rearmed for another run at the DIII New England Championships. There were many notable individual performances for the team this weekend, but it was evident that the explosive team that dominated NESCACs was a little flat from their effort the week before.

Thursday was a great start for the team as decathletes Bobby Bardin and Frank DeSalvo threw down a slew of PRs in Day 1, not the least was a 300pt improvement for both over the first 5 events. Bardin and DeSalvo entered the championships as the two lowest seeds, but they would do everything to ensure that was not the way it finished. DeSalvo would narrowly miss scoring in the championships with a 455 point PR in the decathlon. Bardin added his own 400pt PR to move up to 12th overall.

As Bardin and DeSalvo finished up their ten event competition, a trio of Jumbos started their weekend. Seniors Jonathan Pak and Isaiah Paramore entered this weekends championships off huge weekends at NESCACs. Both PRd by over a foot in the LJ at the NESCAC Championships and both would open up with PR leaps this weekend as well. Paramores jump of 22-5.25 earned him a 4th place finish while Paks 21-10.25 finished 8th. They made Tufts the lone school with multiple All New England jumpers. At the same time, junior Chris Brunnquell battled through the final 10k of his season for an 8th place finish. After a strong start, Brunnquell battled through a rough patch to fight for the final All New England spot.

With Fridays competition completed and the sun rising on Saturdays races, the Jumbos saw a number of athletes cross of personal goals. It was interesting to see those athletes with something left to prove, step up and claim that goal. In the 100m, senior Marc Soskin and freshman Vinnie Lee both out raced their seeds with Lee narrowly missing the finals by two spots. Sam Read earned an ECAC qualifier in the vault with his clearance of 14-6 while captain Andrew Longley ran a season best 50.57 in the 400m dash. Longley continues to drop time in the event with each week back from an injury. Fingers are crossed that his time will be good enough to get him another race next week at the Open New England Championships.

Senior, captain Billy Hale had his eyes set on the 4:00 barrier for the 1500m and he went and got it. Sophomore Connor Rose clocked in at a PR clip of 1:56.79 in the 800m and freshman triple jumper, Gbola Ajayi, added another 2 inches to his PR from a week before. Finally, the trio of 5k runners fought through the heat for great performances. Freshman Matt Rand (15:07) and sophomore Scott McArthur (15:13) each clocked in with outdoor PRs.

As the team ventures even deeper into their week of finals, next weekends competition at Northeaster University could become all the more taxing. Even still, a number of Jumbos are able to elevate above the stress of coursework and tests to assemble some amazing performances. We will have to wait until next week to see who it will be this year. Can you handle the wait?


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