Dayorsha Collins, Women's track
After ending last week's Dartmouth Relays three quarters of an inch short of becoming a provisional qualifier for Nationals, freshman Dayorsha Collins bounced back at the Tufts Invitational to secure a collegiate personal record and earn herself a provisional spot in Indiana.
Setting a mark of 5'5 1/4", Collins won the high jump event and broke the threshold to be considered a contender for Nationals. Collins' ascendance to a slot as a provisional qualifier has been steady, as she has experienced an upward trajectory in performance from the first meet of the season.
Beginning with the season-opening Husky Carnival at Northeastern, she posted a jump of 5'3 3/4", placing fifth in the event to lead the Jumbos. In the Dartmouth Relays the following week, Collins jumped 5'4 1/4", accounting for six of the Jumbos' 15 total points. She placed third in the high jump, the highest spot the Jumbos were able to achieve in the meet, to match freshman Nakeisha Jones' third-place performance in the triple jump.
Collins' determination will help carry a team that has enjoyed a strong start to the season thanks to some key underclassman performances. Collins finds herself in good company on the road to the NCAA championship meet, joining sophomore Stephanie McNamara and Jones as the latest Jumbos to provisionally qualify for the national meet.
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James Bradley, Men's track
Senior quad-captain James Bradley highlighted Tufts' fourth-place finish at the Tufts Invitational — the first of four to be held at the Gantcher Center — on Saturday with an impressive 6'8 1/4" mark in the high jump. The mark not only won the event but also provisionally qualified him for the NCAA championship meet in March, to be held at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Indiana on March 13-14, for the second straight year. Bradley's closest competitor, UMass Lowell freshman Shaddi Ali, finished with a mark of 6'5". The meet was Bradley's first of the year as he sat out the team's season opener, the Northeastern-hosted Husky Carnival on Dec. 6.
Last year, the Jumbos' performance at this meet was also marked by one of Bradley's NCAA-qualifying high jump performances. And although Tufts finished in fourth place this year instead of first, Bradley improved over an inch on last year's NCAA-qualifying mark of 6'7".
Bradley is already a fixture in the Tufts record books, as he co-holds Tufts' outdoor high jump record with former teammate Jeremy Arak (E '08) at a mark of 6'7 1/2". Furthermore, Bradley is steadily inching toward the indoor record of 6'9", set in 1983.
