The men's track and field team kicked off its indoor season with a downsized lineup at the Husky Winter Carnival at Northeastern on Saturday, as just 28 Jumbos competed in the meet while others watched from the sidelines, including 21 returning letter-winners.
"We treat this meet as kind of a time trial for us," coach Ethan Barron said. "It's a chance for us to gauge where everybody's at -- how they've gotten stronger and faster over the summer and the fall. I was very pleased with the performances. We had a number of athletes coming away with [personal records] or New England-qualifying marks. Any time you can do that in a time-trial setting is always a great start to the season."
Senior Phillip Rotella and sophomore James Wheeler led the Jumbos, with Rotella placing 19th in the 55-meter dash and sixth in the 200-meter dash and Wheeler, who did not compete as a freshman, tying Rotella for 19th in the 55-meter dash and notching 13th in the long jump. The team also saw solid performances from its throwers, as sophomore Alex Gresham finished 14th in the weight throw and classmate David Dorman took 17th in the shot put.
"The sophomore throwers have made some great gains from where they were at last year, and they are a lot better than the marks they put out on Saturday -- [when they were] getting the competition rust off -- and they're getting ready to take it to the next level," Barron said.
"We have a good group of throwers, with a few veteran guys that have been around and now freshmen that look promising," junior quad-captain Nick Welch said. "They have a good coach, and it will be a strong group. There's not really any team that has a bulk of their points coming from their throws, but I think the group as they are now has a lot of possibility to contribute a lot of the potential success for the team this year."
The highest finisher for Tufts was junior Ikenna Acholonu, who took third place in the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 8.01. Other noteworthy efforts for Tufts came from senior Marcelo Norsworthy and sophomore Greg Pallotta, who had both missed past seasons due to injury. Norsworthy took 10th in the 1,000 meters, running it in 2:42.17, while Pallotta placed 12th in the 3,000-meter run, clocking in at 9:12.17.
"I was pretty happy with [my performance]," Pallotta said. "I didn't really expect anything going into it. I just wanted to put on the uniform again and get out there and race ... It gives us -- us being me and the coaches -- a good jumping off point to see what kind of shape I'm in and what my body can handle, so I think it's a good indicator of where I am at this point."
A foot injury during last year's indoor and outdoor seasons had prevented Pallotta, who is also a cross country runner in the fall, from training for 10 weeks. Since then, shin problems have also kept him from the track.
"I think once I get 100 percent healthy and I'm able to train, it will take a couple months of good solid training, but I see no reason why I wouldn't be able to be where I was before," Pallotta said.
"Overall, some of the younger cross country guys showed that their fitness from the cross country season is now translating into good performances on the track, and the sprinters had a pretty solid day," Welch said. "For most people, it takes at least one race to sort of shake the cobwebs out and get into the swing of things and competing. That's why it's nice that we had this meet in December."
The team will not be racing again until after winter break Jan. 17, when it hosts the Tufts Invitational.
"As a whole, the team did a great job with what we've worked on," Barron said. "So early in the season, we've only be able to work on a lot of parts, whether it's acceleration for the sprinters or endurance for the distance runners or the runway for the jumpers. I think that across the board everyone did a great job executing what we've worked on, and now we have four more months until indoor championships and six more months until outdoor championships, to fill in the holes.
"Really this meet sets up more for practice," he continued. "Now we know what we have to work on, we know what we have to work with, and we'll get in a lot more quality workouts that will make our second-semester meets that much more competitive."
