Men's Track dominates in first of consecutive home meets

A winter break that consisted of two meets with two vastly different levels of competition left the men's track team with according results.

On Jan 17, the team hosted six fellow New England schools at the Gantcher Center. The Jumbos flat out dominated the six-team event, mounting 316 team points to second place Keene State's 124.

Six days earlier, Tufts sent a limited squad to Dartmouth to compete against a field that included Div I Illinois as well as several international squads. The Jumbos finished 13th out of 26 teams.

This past weekend, the Jumbos once against hosted a meet at home, only this time without score. That was okay with coach Connie Putnam.

"We have a young team," Putnam said. "So it was a good opportunity for the young guys to get out and run around and jump all out without the pressure of being scored."

Sophomore Trevor Williams finished second overall in the 400 meter dash and junior Ray Carre finished third in the 500, but Putnam thought the highlight of the day was the 800, where freshman Nate Cleveland ran a sharp 1:59.06, good for first place.

The Jumbos also found success in the 1,500, where junior Nate Brigham finished second overall with a career best of 4:02.55, and fellow classmate Mike Don wasn't far behind, finishing fifth with a time of 4:06.67.

"I was most pleased by the 55 meter hurdles," Putnam said, referring to the race where junior Nate Thompson finished second overall and first out of Div III competitors with a 7.99.

Tufts' 4x400 relay team also finished first with a time of 3:27.7, the team's second consecutive win dating back to the previous week, and the Jumbos found varied success in the jumps and shot-put events.

Still, Tufts' achievements at its non-scored meet could not be compared to the success of its first home meet, when it dominated in almost every event. Carre (second in the 200 and first in the 400), Brigham (first in the 3000) and sophomore Matt Lacey (third in the 1000 and second in the 1500) were all bright spots, as was the 5000 meter run, where Don and freshman Josh Kennedy finished 1-2.

Meanwhile, sophomore Seth LaPierre won the pole vault, freshman Ryan Byrne captured the shot put title, and freshman Fred Jones, who sat out this past weekend with an injured hip flexor, claimed first in both the long jump and the triple jump.

The previous week at Dartmouth, first place finishes were nowhere to be found for the Jumbo athletes, but Putnam was not expecting his team to finish atop the competition.

"We took some top guys who were back early and had a week of practice in, and we went up there to compete and get pushed around a little bit," he said. "The competition was extreme."

Sophomore roommates Lacey and Mike Cummings accounted for ten of the Jumbos' 11 team points, finishing third and seventh, respectively, in the 5000 meter race. Thompson accounted for the other point through virtue of his sixth place finish in the 60 meter hurdles.

On Saturday, the Jumbos will venture up to Bowdoin, where they will clash against not only the Polar Bears but also MIT and Springfield.

"That will be a very, very difficult meet," Putnam said. "Anytime you race Bowdoin and MIT at the same time it's going to be a knocker of a meet. Next week should tell us a lot about where we are as a team."