PRs Abound At Open NEs

(5/7/2010) Full Results

The Jumbos assembled a 12th place overall finish at this springs Open New England Championships with 27 points. One week after scoring 15 points at the DIII New England Championships, the squad put together a slew of PRs against even stronger competition for a great showing.

Leading the way would have to be senior captain, Jared Engelking who posted a near automatic qualifier for the national championships by winning the decathlon. Engelking outpaced all other competitors in his 10-event performance of 6587 points. It marked the 3rd time in 5 years that the Jumbos had won the Open New England decathlon. Freshman Mike Blair added an 8th place finish in the event as well.

Beyond the Tufts mulit-events, this weekend seemed to be a great weekend for anyone running 1 lap or more for the squad. Senior Trevor Donadt continued his strong season with a national qualifying time of 53.60 in the 400mH. Not to be out done, freshman Jeff Marvel clocked in with a lifetime best time of 1:53.93 narrowly missing the NCAA qualifying time by less than 1 second.

Senior, captain Billy Hale also added his own PR in the 1500m run as he continued to dip further below the 4:00 mark. His time of 3:58.93 was his first sub 3:59 time as he ran a brilliantly tactical race. Continuing to increase in laps, senior Ryan Lena assembled the best 3000m steeplechase of his career. Lena ran a brilliant race on an injured left leg to flirt with a national qualifier. His time of 9:26.93 was a 7 second PR for the senior in his final race and only missed qualifying provisionally for nationals by 2+ seconds.

Even still, no one ran more laps for the Jumbos than freshman Matt Rand. In only the second 10k of his career, Rand missed qualifying for nationals by a mere 21 seconds. After running 3+ miles of the NESCAC 10k with one shoe, Rand wanted a second shot at the event. It was a difficult set up for the freshman after the one-shoe 10k at NESCACs, 5k at DIII New Englands, and running the final 5 miles of the race alone. Still, Rand was able to grind out a great performance clicking off 75s and 76s completely alone. A starting shortstop for the Cape Elizabeth High School baseball team, Rand seems to have found a home with collegiate running and continues to gain strength from his consistent training.

There was no better way to put an exclamation point on the weekend than by adding a new school record to the season. The 4x800m team of Hale, Marvel, Jason Hanrahan, and Jesse Faller clocked in with a new school record mark of 7:44.47. This years team has pumped out low 7:40s consistently since the end of the indoor season. However, with three seniors on the outdoor school record team, it will be exciting to see what next years team will put together.

Look for the Jumbos to continue their solid outdoor season next week at the ECAC Championships and the IC4A Championships.


Full Results