Last weekend marked the official end of the indoor track season for the Jumbos. Wrapping it up with an unscored meet at the Gantcher Center last Saturday, the Jumbos now look to the post season, beginning today with New England Div. III Championships.
The championships will take place at Tufts this afternoon at 4 p.m. Facing the top performers from rivals MIT, Williams, and other top schools, coach Connie Puntam knows it will be hard for his team to compete for the meet's top spots.
"We haven't got as much strength as we would like," he said.
For Puntam, if his team breaks into the top eight spots, he will be satisfied. While the weakness of the field events has kept the Jumbos behind their competition throughout the indoor season, Putnam said he is encouraged by the improvements he has seen from team members this year and the efforts of those who will be entering this weekend's meet.
"The guys who are in the meet will run really hard and make some good competition," he said.
Of those Jumbos entering the championships, most are runners. In the field events, only freshman Patrick Taylor and junior Chris Martin qualified, and will compete for the triple jump and the shot put, respectively. Epitomizing their struggles in the field events, Tufts failed to qualify men for the high jump and long jump. Also missing from the entries is a runner in the 55 meter dash, a sprinting event that has been another weakness for the team. While Tufts was able to qualify sophomore Adam Sharp for the 800-meter dash, as a tactical move, Putnam will enter Sharp in the 1,000 instead, hoping to give him a better opportunity to score points.
Despite the holes in the team's depth, Putnam believes he is taking a stronger team into this year's championship than last year. For example, the hurdling team has showed great improvement this year, he said. Both sophomores Bryan Pitko and Greg Devine increased their speed this year. Along with the addition of freshman Chinua Thelwell, the hurdlers will be one of the strongest squads in the meet.
Another area where the team has developed is the long distance squad. Putnam mentioned that Tufts has gotten faster in every event from the 1,000 run and longer.
With the across-the-board improvements for the running squad, the coach was pleased with how the team finished its indoor season, which featured numerous team members setting career bests in their events.
"I'm encouraged because of the degree of personal achievement we've had," Putnam said.
While there were many Jumbos with great performances this season, senior co-captain David Patterson led the long-distance squad as one of Tufts' standouts. Qualifying for the Div. III and ECAC championships in the 1,000, 1,500, and 3,000, Patterson also qualified for the Div. I championships in the 1,500.
"Patterson has just been cruising this indoor season, and if he continues this way through the outdoor season, he's going to be Nationals bound," Devine said of his teammate.
Preparing for the post-season since Tufts began the indoor season, the team took last weekend's meet to qualify more men for the Div. III championships and other post-season events. A relaxed, un-scored meet, the high point for the Jumbos was the return of co-captain senior John McGuire. After missing most of the season due to injury, McGuire ran in the 1,000, placing tenth (2:46.52). While he has not qualified for the post-season, his return proved to the team that McGuire will be factor during the outdoor season.
"It's always an inspiration to see your captain get back out there and run," Devine said.
This week, the Jumbos tapered down on the intensity of their practices, getting all of their entries 100 percent healthy before the post-season. The Div. III Championships will be the first in a series. Later weekends will find the Jumbos competing in the All-New England and ECAC championships as well. The Div. III's will serve as another opportunity for the men to qualify for the other events if they did not during the regular season.
