Jumbo Performances From Tufts Not Enough to Upset Williams

(2/18/2006) See more Photos     Full Results

Tufts entered the Division III NE Championships fielding the strongest team in the school's history, but it wasn't enough to upset defending favorite Williams College. The Ephs beat the Jumbos 153 to 131.

The Jumbos captured an early lead on day one of the meet with the men's pentathlon. Sophomore Nate Scott took second place, setting a new Tufts school record at 3415 points, while Freshman James Bradley and Sophomore Jeremy Arak took fourth and sixth with 3044 and 2943 points, respectively.

Tufts met with early setbacks in the short sprints on Saturday. Freshman standout Will Forde led the Tufts men with a 6.79s in the 55m and 23.31s in the 200m but missed qualifying for the finals in either event. In the 55m hurdles, junior Jamil Ludd placed 8th in 8.22s.

Jumbos started hitting the boards in the long sprints and middle distance races. Junior Dustin Virgilio represented in the 400m with 51.39s for 6th place. Senior Matt Fortin took 2nd in the mile in 4:16, just a second behind Williams miler Mike Davitian, while senior captain Matt Lacey's 4:22 was not fast enough to score. The 600m was another close loss to a Williams athlete, where senior captain Trevor Williams took 2nd with 1:22.9. Junior Nate Cleveland took 5th in the 800m with 1:57.79. But senior Pat Mahoney won the 1000m in a blazing 2:31.25, followed closely by Matt Fortin in 4th, returning from the mile to run 2:32.64 in a show of true intensity.

Next came the long distance races. Matt Lacey returned from the mile to take second in the 3k behind Williams senior Neal Holtschulte. In the 5k, junior Josh Kennedy and sophomore Chris Kantos went one-two, blowing past rest of the field.

Meanwhile, Tufts jumpers were making some serious noise on the infield. The name of the day was Dan Marcy, who set a 2 foot PR in the triple jump with 46-10, good enough for provo NCAA qualification and 2nd place in the meet (but not good enough to catch Tufts junior Fred Jones, who jumped 47-05 to win the meet for the third consecutive year). Jones also won the long jump with 22-11.5. Sophomore Jeremy Arak earned some serious respect returning from the pent to win the high jump at 6-07.5, while freshman Ted McMahan placed 6th with 6-03. In the pole vault, seniors Rob Lorie and Tim Bassell took 7th and 8th with 13-00 and 12-06 jumps, rounding out a great season of improvements from both athletes.

Tufts's only scorer in the throws was senior captain Jason Galvin, who placed 8th in the weight throw with 49-03. The highlight of the meet, though, was MIT senior Uzoma Orji, who broke meet records in both the weight throw and the shot put, and deserves congratulations here.

The meet ended with the relays, starting with the 4x400, where Tufts finished 4th. In a contentious case, the Tufts DMR team was disqualified for a uniform violation, forfeiting a 5th place finish. The Tufts 4x800 squad was later disqualified when anchor Pat Mahoney cut off another runner in the home stretch. With the meet over, the Tufts and Williams men shook hands and exchanged congratulations. It was a demonstration of sportsmanship and respect that fitted the two best teams in New England.

While the Jumbos were not able to come away with the title, we did make a serious mark with 131 points. Our score of 131 points was higher than the next two teams' scores combined, higher than any other four teams' scores combined, higher than the winning score in all but four years of New England DIII Championships' 25-year history, and higher than any other Tufts team in school history. For the first time ever, Tufts walked into the meet with 30 entrants qualified across all 21 events, making us the most balanced team in school history as well. And Tufts walked out with several strong individual qualifiers who will continue to turn it up for TUTF at All New Englands and NCAA's.

GO JUMBOS!!!


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