Tufts faces heavy competition in All-New England Championships

After finishing 14th out of 31 teams at the All-New England Championships last year, the men's track and field team will be striving for a top ten finish at this year's event, held today and tomorrow at Boston University.

"Any year we make the top ten, we consider that a really good performance," coach Connie Putnam said.

His squad will have a chance to do so, with Jumbos competing in fourteen events over two days. In most events, the trials will be held today and the finals tomorrow, with the long distance events being split up over both days.

In the field events, freshman Fred Jones will compete in both the triple jump, which he won at New England Division III's last weekend, and the long jump, while sophomores Dan March and Seth LaPierre will tackle the weight throw and the pole vault, respectively.

Junior Ray Carre and freshman Nate Cleveland finished first and third in the 600 meter race last week at Division III New England's. That event doesn't exist at All-New England's, so Carre will instead compete in the 400, while sophomore teammate Pat Mahoney will tackle the 800.

Freshmen Scott Merrick and Dan Jones will race for the Jumbos in the 1000, while in the 1500 sophomore Kyle Doran and Mike Don look to be a potent 1-2 punch. Don might also run the 3000 with sophomore Matt Lacey. In the 5000, junior Nate Brigham and freshman Josh Kennedy will line up for Tufts, with sophomore Matt Lacey also possibly joining them.

Junior Nate Thompson and freshman Jamil Ludd will race for the Jumbos in the 55 meter hurdles. Putnam will also have teams in three relays: the 4x400, 4x800, and distance medley relay. Additionally, sophomore Tim Bassell will compete in the pentathlon, consisting of the shot put, long jump, high jump, 55 meter sprint, and 1000 meter run.

Although the 5000 might be the only event where the Jumbos feature more than two competitors, save for the relays, Putnam still expects strong results across the board.

"This weekend is more of an individual meet," Putnam said. "Everyone does the best that they can, and the better they do, the higher we'll score as a team."

The competitors will either be trying to make a final push for national qualifying times or else tuning up for next weekend's ECAC's.

Thus far, no Jumbos have automatically qualified for the NCAA's. However, several Jumbos have provisionally qualified: Jones for his 46-8 triple jump, March on the basis of his 53-6.5 in the weight throw, and Brigham's 14:47.04 in the 5k.

Putnam thinks that Jones' mark will probably be good enough to get him into the event, but that March and Brigham might need to improve to be selected from the provisional list.

"I'd like to see Danny throw about 55 feet instead of the 53-6.5 that he's thrown, but he's definitely capable of that; he's had some long throws," Putnam said. "And I think Nate needs to run a 14:36, but he might be able to get that this weekend."

On the whole, the Jumbos' performances should be fairly impressive as they will compete against athletes from Division I on a quicker bank track.

"We're running against the big bad boys," Putnam said. "We'll just go over there and try to run and compete as hard as we can."