This weekend, the pressure is on for the men's track and field team. The NCAA Championships, to be held at Illinois Wesleyan on March 11-12, are quickly approaching. This Saturday will be the last chance for any Jumbos to qualify for Nationals or to improve qualifying times at the aptly-named Last Chance Invitational, hosted by Trinity College at Yale University.
A handful of Jumbos have already managed to put themselves on the list for Nationals. All-American sophomore Fred Jones, who holds the New England Div. III record for long jump and triple jump this season (7.02 meters and 14.61, respectively), has already provisionally qualified for the triple jump and the long jump events.
At the New England Div. III meet two weeks ago, hosted at Tufts, Jones broke Bob Jones' 55-year old school record in the long jump (23 feet, 7.5 inches) with a mark of 23-10. Jones also holds the Tufts indoor school record in the triple jump (48'0 1/2").
Senior Nate Brigham and junior Matt Lacey are provisionally qualified in the 5,000 meters (14:36.59 and 14:43.43, respectively). Brigham currently sits in first for Div. III New England. Brigham's qualifying time is good enough to earn him a spot at nationals, but Lacey's mark puts him at 14th on the list, and generally only the top 11 or 12 runners are taken. Lacey will attempt to improve his mark this weekend to bump him up on the list.
Junior Patrick Mahoney's performance in the 800 last weekend at All-New England's, a personal best and the second fastest time in Tufts history (1:54.49), put his name on the provisional qualifying list for Nationals as well. However as of now Mahoney's time is not fast enough to put him on the roster for the event, so he will run this weekend and attempt to improve his time.
Mahoney is also provisionally qualified for the distance medley relay (DMR) event, along with teammates senior Aaron Kaye and juniors Trevor Williams and Matt Fortin. The four-man team broke the Tufts indoor school record in a time of 10:01.33 and came within .33 seconds of qualifying for nationals at the recent St. Valentine's Invitational at Boston University.
This weekend, a few more Jumbos will attempt to earn a ticket to join their teammates headed to Illinois in a week.
The Last Chance Invitational is a non-scoring meet, so the Jumbos' focus will be only on improving times and marks. Anyone who has run ECAC standard qualifying times is eligible to run at the meet.
"[The Last Chance Invitational]'s entire intention is to provide last-chance qualifying races to individuals who are very close to making NCAA qualifying marks," coach Connie Putnam said. "We hope we'll get good fields in every event, and the kids will get a chance to run fast. If the right people show up and want to run fast, it works very nicely."
Sophomore Jamil Ludd and senior Nate Thompson will compete in the 55 meter hurdles. Junior Trevor Williams will compete in the 400 sprint, along with freshman Nate Scott. Sophomore Ciaran O'Donovan will join Mahoney in the 800.
Kaye and Fortin will both compete in the mile event. Fortin has previously come within a half second of qualifying in this event earlier in the season. Senior Michael Don will join Lacey in the 5K.
Freshman Jeremy Arak will compete in the high jump and Thompson will compete in the long jump. Freshman Dan Marcy will jump in the triple jump event.
Juniors Seth LaPierre and William Heitmann, along with sophomore Justin Henneman, will compete in the pole vault.
Because it is the end of the season, and the athletes having been training hard, Putnam believes his team is in good shape to perform well this weekend.
"Generally speaking, track and field is a progressive project," Putnam said. "The athletes become faster and faster as the season gets later and later, and of course that is the intent. We worked from general conditioning to race-specific conditioning. So they are very fast right now, and they are very ready."
It's now-or-never for the Jumbos who have yet to qualify, but at this point in their season, they're in good shape and should make a strong bout at the Last Chance Invitational this weekend.
