With the New England Championships only two weeks away, it appears the men's track and field team is peaking at the right time.
Sophomore Andrew Longley broke a 15-year-old school record, senior quad-captains Dave Sorensen and Dan Marcy qualified provisionally for NCAAs, and the rest of the team set a slew of personal records at the Boston University Valentine Invitational on Saturday.
The meet is BU's biggest invitational and garnered over 2,000 entrants this year.
"Anyone who wants to enter can enter," Longley said. "Because BU has such a nice banked track, a lot of people come - a lot of Div. I schools, a lot of fast people. It's pretty crazy."
The meet lasted over 14 hours, but the highlight for Tufts came early. Longley ran a 22.48 in the 200-meter dash, breaking the standing Tufts record by 0.13 seconds, which was good for 34th place in such a deep field. It wasn't the first time Longley had approached the record on that track; at Tufts' last meet at BU, the Terrier Invitational on Jan. 25-26, Longley missed out on the record by only 0.02 seconds.
"It felt great to finally do it, especially after coming so close before," Longley said. "I've been aiming for it for a while. I broke it by a pretty large margin, so it just felt great. I've got a shot to lower it in two weeks at the same track, so hopefully I'll be able to do that."
Following Longley were junior Phil Rotella, classmate Colin Fitzgerald and freshman Montez Paschal. Each set a personal record with finishes of 22.82, 22.96 and 23.96, respectively.
In the 400 meters, Longley led the team with his 53rd-place finish, and was followed by senior quad-captain Nathan Scott (93rd) and freshman Jeremy Peterson (96th). Longley and Scott were both within a tenth of a second of their personal records, while Peterson qualified for New Englands with his performance.
The Jumbos also saw dynamic performances from Sorensen and Marcy. Marcy landed a triple jump of 46 feet, 7.5 inches, good enough for eighth at the meet and well above the NCAA provisional mark of 45 feet, 11.25 inches.
Sorensen, meanwhile, ran the 5,000 meters in 14:48.18 on BU's banked track. He finished 28th, and his adjusted time will still be within the NCAA provisional mark of 14:55. Joining Sorensen in the 5k, sophomores Nick Welch and Jesse Faller finished 49th and 50th, respectively, each setting a personal record in the event.
Sophomore Jared Engelking set the tone for the day early, coming back from injury to compete in the 55-meter hurdles. His time of 8.16 was good enough to qualify for New Englands, and he is now 11th in the region after only one race.
Senior quad-captain Jeremy Arak had a fantastic performance in the high jump, hitting 6 feet, 6 inches to take sixth place. Though Arak officially finished in sixth, nobody at the meet cleared a height higher than him.
Sophomore Billy Hale had one of the best finishes of the day, taking 15th in the 1,000 meter race with a 2:30.04. Hale now sits at second in the region in the event.
"Everything kind of built off each other," Arak said. "We kind of picked up on energy from each event and gained momentum. Once one guy throws down a PR, it's easier for the next person to come out confident."
Tufts now looks towards a meet next week at MIT, followed by New England Div. III Championships on Feb. 22-23.
"Really, we just need to practice racing and doing the right thing going into championship week," Longley said. "In the mid-distance and long-distance races especially, positioning is very important. We need to practice that and pacing. We've been doing a good job practicing racing strategy so far, so hopefully that will carry over to the competition."
