Devine and Pitko finish in top eight at Nationals

The indoor track and field season came to a triumphant close a week ago with the Division III NCAA's at DePauw University in Greencastle, IN. Two athletes represented the Jumbos in the men's competition, with senior tri-captains Greg Devine and Bryan Pitko competing in the 55-meter hurdles.

Devine (7.60 seconds) placed fifth, while Pitko (7.79) finished eighth. Both athletes were named All-Americans for the second consecutive year. Pitko ran sixth at last year's indoor NCAA's at Ohio Northern University and received All-American honors. Devine earned his honors outdoors, starring nationally in both the 110 and 400 meter hurdles and winning both events at the NESCAC Championships.

"I can't complain, I set a goal of becoming an All-American indoors at the start of the season," Devine said. "Friday was a tougher race, and I guess I let it down a little on Saturday because you're in the final eight, and you know you're an All-American."

Coach Connie Putnam agreed, pointing out the difficulty in remaining focused on the finals after a successful run in the qualifying event.

"Once you qualify for the NCAA's, the hardest thing to do is qualify for the finals," Putnam said. "To take two guys out and have both make the finals is a very big accomplishment, and both went ahead and scored."

Devine led the field in qualifying, posting a time of 7.57 seconds. The time was just 0.01 seconds off his recent school record of 7.56, set four weeks ago at the New England Division III Championships at MIT. Pitko qualified with a season best time of 7.63, also matching his previous career best and the former school record.

The final featured what Putnam described as a slow start, with the field reacting slowly to the starting gun. However Sophomore Basil Steele of the University of Dubuque in Iowa won the race in 7.50, setting a new DePauw track center record. Steele matched Pitko's qualifying time in the preliminary round.

"They would both argue that it wasn't as good a race as possible," Putnam said. "Greg especially felt he got a slow start. He had a very hard chest cold, and his [recurring] groin injury was not 100 percent. Bryan also had some minor nagging injuries, but they ran really well. Steele was the one lucky guy who got away exactly in time with the gun, he came out smooth and is a very good hurdler."

The meet signified the end of the pair's indoor careers. While battling each other for the school record in the hurdles this season, Devine and Pitko joined with fellow senior tri-captain Adam Sharp to lead the team to a third place finish at the Div. III's. It was the team's best result since coming second in 1996 when the event took place at Brandeis. The indoor team also finished 14th out of 31 teams at the All-New England's and fifth of 44 at the ECAC's thanks to strong performances on both the track and in the field.

With the outdoor season beginning this weekend at Northeastern, the team will look to continue the success achieved indoors this winter. The outdoor season is a much more condensed one, with just four regular meets before championship competition begins with the NESCAC's at Trinity College on the last weekend of April.

"Obviously we'd like to do as well as we can," Putnam said. "The Northeastern meet is a very relaxed, open meet, and we'll get everyone back into a race, just get them more comfortable."

Devine agreed, hoping to build upon the recent achievements to strengthen the team's presence at the outdoor Nationals.

"My goal is to go and repeat last year's [performance] as an All-American in hurdles," Devine said. "But also we'll try to get some more guys out there. The two coaches and Bryan and I had a great time out there, but we were saying we need to motivate some more guys, to light some fires under them."