The men's track team hit the road last weekend, travelling north to participate in the Bowdoin Hexagonal, its second meet of the outdoor season. When arriving at the meet, the team was surprised to see snow covered fields.
"It was a little unnerving to arrive at a track meet and see a track that was shoveled off for us to run on," sophomore Greg Devine said.
But despite the gloomy weather, the team put in a fairly strong performance, taking second place against tough competition. The most impressive aspect of Tufts' finish (138 pts) was its defeat of Bowdoin (107.5), a team that had beaten the Jumbos during the indoor season. The victory displayed Tufts' marked improvement since earlier this year.
MIT was the meet's winner, scoring 253 points for a decisive victory. The Engineers scored in double digits in thirteen of the team's events, putting them far beyond the reach of their competition.
"Right now, we can't handle MIT, they're just overpowering us," Tufts coach Connie Putnam said.
Highlighting the day's scoring effort was the Jumbos' dominance in the 110m high hurdles. Tufts racked up 24 points in the event, finishing in four of the top five spots.
"It was our most powerful event of the day," Putnam said.
Sophomore Greg Devine was the event's victor, and his time of 14.7 seconds qualified him for nationals. It also placed him tenth out of all the collegiate runners qualified for the event.
Sophomore Bryan Pitko was his teammate's greatest rival in the 110 hurdles, finishing a close second (14.98) in a mark only four one-hundredths of a second off the qualifying time for nationals. Junior Andy Benedict and freshman Chinua Thelwell came in fourth and fifth in the event (15.91, 15.93), respectively.
The 110 high hurdles were not Devine's only victory of the day, as he also won the 400 intermediate hurdles (54.60).
While the Jumbos performed fairly well in the sprinting events, they were not as strong in the distance races. Senior Dave Patterson led early in the 1500m run, but could not hold out, settling for sixth place (4:09.31). The team was also unable to place in the 3000m steeplechase.
Freshmen Patrick Taylor contributed significantly to the team scoring effort on Saturday. Winning both the long jump and the triple jump (6.59m, 13.49), he set career bests in both events, also qualifying for the Div. III championships in both.
Putnam said the lack of scoring balance was mostly due to the throwers' inability to adjust to the weather. With muddy and icy fields and a strong glare from the snow, the coach felt his men were intimidated by the snow. The running and jumping events, meanwhile, proved to be strong points for the Jumbos, helping them overcome the weather distractions to beat out four of the six teams in attendance.
While the Bowdoin Hexagonal was only the team's second meet of the regular season, next weekend will be its last because of a rained-out meet.
"Having a short season has definitely hurt us; it's put a little more pressure on us to qualify," senior co-captain Darren Fabbri said.
Looking to this weekend's Conn. College invitational, the coach hopes that good weather will finally prevail, and that more of his men will be able to qualify for postseason action. At the April 28-29 NESCAC Championships, runners will still be able to qualify for Nationals. Those qualified for the Div. III Championships will compete in that meet on May 4-5.
