4 Event Wins Earns Tufts Third Place at NEs

(2/25/2013 6:59 AM) Full Results

The Jumbos grabbed four event victories at this weekend’s New England Championships, and none of them came easily. After two days of competition, Tufts finished third as a team with 92 points, two points behind host Bates in second. MIT had a strong day to take the meet with 118.5 points.

Tufts once again got the weekend start with a strong showing in the multi. With wins in the high jump and long jump and a runner-up finish in the shot, it’s no surprise the end of Day 1 of the heptathlon saw senior Mike Blair in the lead. On Saturday, he continued to improve with hept PRs in every event, including an impressive 2:50.35 in the 1000m to seal the victory. Blair finished in the top 5 in all but one event and ended the competition with a PR, school record, and facility record mark of 4900 points, placing him third on the national list and all but guaranteeing him a plane ticket to Naperville in March. Backing him up, junior Andrew Osborne put up 3 points in sixth and sophomore Allan Yau reset his PR with 3584 points.

After this excellent start, the Jumbos had to keep the momentum rolling. Senior Gbola Ajayi did exactly that in the long jump, clinching the top spot with a 6.94m leap in finals, just 1cm ahead of Bridgewater’s Brian Espinosa. Unfortunately, Ajayi fouled two huge marks in the triple jump prelims, keeping him out of finals in his stronger event. Senior Brad Nakanishi had a few stumbles in the vault and missed at 4.71m, putting him at third in the event he won last year.

But that’s track and field. Someone hits a bump in the road and a teammate has to step up. That man was junior Jamie Norton, whose hard-fought 4:15.69 for fourth in the mile looked to everyone watching like the hardest thing he’d ever done. No one was willing to let up in his event after seeing that performance—least of all Mitchell Black. The freshman grabbed the last spot in the hot heat of the 600m and made it count. Shattering Nate Cleveland’s school record by almost a second, Black’s electrifying 1:20.96 put up eight points for the Jumbos.

Junior Graham Beutler kept the momentum rolling in the 200m with a second place of his own in 22.77. Classmate Daniel Lange Vagle backed him up in sixth to make the one-lapper one of Tufts’ strongest events on the day.

That brought on the distance events, a perennial strength for TUTF. After early-season injuries and illnesses, however, the Jumbos found themselves with five athletes in the unseeded section of the 3000m. Undeterred, junior Brian McLaughlin selflessly took on the pacing duties and brought through teammates Ben Wallis and Matt Rand in 4:34, right on schedule to the second. The duo then took over and fought hard to grab two of the top three spots in their section in 8:41, season bests for both. Pressured, the seeded section could only bump Wallis and Rand back to seventh and eighth overall.

If anyone at the Walter Slovenski track now knew it was on him to set the tone for the rest of the meet, it was Kyle Marks. Unfazed when Bates senior Tully Hannan and Bowdoin junior Sam Seekins teamed up to run 14:30 pace from the gun, top-seeded Marks hung patiently in the chase pack letting as the Maine duo ran out of gas. With three laps to go, Kyle moved by the last of the chasers and left him in his wake. Only Seekins remained ahead. After a lead of almost 100m at its peak, the gap was now disappearing fast. With 150m to go, the Tufts senior hit the afterburners and exploded to the first New England title of his career and one of the most impressive Tufts distance races since Josh Kennedy’s NESCAC 5k win in 2007.

And so it came to the relays. The 4x400 saw Tufts finish fourth, less than 0.30 from the win. The DMR hit a rough patch and was out of scoring position. But the 4x800 refused to quit. After freshman Veer Bhalla passed to sophomore Alex Schifter, it was senior captain Jeff Marvel’s turn to come back from the open 800m and give the baton to Black in good position. It soon became a battle between Mitchell and MIT 1:52 800m runner Patrick Marx, who got the baton at nearly the exact same time. He may have a faster PR, but Mitchell showed who was the stronger closer, as the Tufts freshman upended the senior Engineer with a huge kick. The Jumbos took the win in 7:53.27, almost a full second ahead of MIT in 7:54.21—all of which came in the final 80 meters.

The Jumbos headed back south knowing two things. First, they had fought for every point this weekend, despite missing a few key players. Second, they will be tough to beat once at full strength outdoors. But for now, the indoor campaign rolls on at Boston University next weekend for the NEICAAA Championships. Stay tuned.


Full Results