Marvel Moves Up National List in Princeton

(5/21/2012 2:13 PM) Full Results

For the second team this spring, a few Jumbo distance runners traveled to Princeton, NJ, this time for the Larry Ellis Invitational. Two weeks prior, a trio of Jumbos had gone after some solid early-season marks and came away with three big lifetime PRs.

On Friday night, sophomore Ben Wallis put himself in the mix of a strong steeplechase field. After a brisk opening mile well under 4:55, Wallis fought tough to come home in a PR of 9:28.23. Despite two weeks of promising workouts, Kyle Marks struggled with an illness in his 5,000m and stepped off after two miles when it was clear he wouldn’t better his 14:48 from Sam Howell, saving his energy for next week’s NESCAC 5k.

Saturday morning brought warm temperatures and the men’s 800m. Two weeks ago, junior Jeff Marvel had moved up to 1500m and set a new PR of 3:54.65; now he turned his focus to the event in which he was an All American indoors. While he had comfortably won his sectin of the 1500m, Marvel spent much of the first 600m of this race battling for position. His final time of 1:51.98 wasn’t the sub-1:50 mark he had targeted but bodes well for the next month given that, tactically, he didn’t have time to open up and move until about 120m to go.

The Jumbos will likely return to Princeton one final time in May for the IC4A Championships. But before then, the focus shifts to the NESCAC Championships at Bates College next weekend.


Full Results