Senior quad-captain James Bradley may have had a bit of deja vu at Saturday's Tufts Invitational I, but the men's track and field team isn't complaining.
For the second straight year, Bradley hit the NCAA provisional qualifying mark in the high jump at the first Tufts-hosted meet of the season. Jumping 6'8 1/4", he easily topped the NCAA mark and bested the field by over three inches for one of three Tufts victories on the day.
But despite these victories, the Jumbos fell to a middle-of-the-pack fourth-place finish in a field of nine teams, amassing 123 points compared with second-place Keene State's 126. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute took third place, edging the Jumbos by a single point with a total of 124.
"Track is a funny sport because every meet you are going to have some [personal records] and some off days, and this meet was no different," coach Ethan Barron said. "I was very pleased with the outcomes of some performances, and others just showed us that we have work to do this season."
Joining Bradley on the highlight reel was the 4x800 meter relay squad consisting of juniors Billy Hale and Jason Hanrahan, senior Marcelo Norsworthy, and sophomore Jeff Ragazzini. The squad finished in 8:08.84, just under 20 seconds ahead of second-place Fitchburg State.
"I was pretty pleased with all eight guys that ran on the two 4x800s, coming back for second races," Barron said. "That is something that we're going to need them to do in championship meets, and they did it very well.
Ragazzini cemented the final victory for the Jumbos, running a mile in 4:26.04, five seconds ahead of the second-place finisher. Ragazzini's time was six seconds better than his previous personal best.
"I knew that if I kept my head in the race and ran it to win, then the time would be there," Ragazzini said. "I think it bodes pretty well [for my season]. I know now what I have to work on in my races. With a combination of racing smarter and racing on faster tracks, I should be able to compete pretty well in New Englands. Coming into this season I had the goal of running a provisional qualifying time for Nationals, so that's still the sort of the A+ goal right now."
Tufts also had three second-place finishes in the meet. Norsworthy finished runner-up in the 600-meter run with a time of 1:23.17, while junior Jesse Faller crossed the line in the 3,000-meter run in 8:52.17 and freshman Matt Williams threw 45'8 1/2" in the shot put.
Tufts also put up a strong showing in the weight throw. Sophomore Alex Gresham led the way, tossing for 47'11 3/4" to claim third place. He was followed by sophomore David Dormon in fifth, Williams in seventh, and sophomore Cullan Riley in ninth.
"All four throwers PRed in the weight throw," Barron said. "[That was] probably our best all-around event for the day."
While the fourth-place showing may not have been its best, the team was at a disadvantage due to its lack of healthy participants this weekend.
"We had a very skeleton crew this weekend," Barron said. "That was one of the smallest teams I've entered in an invitational in my four years here. Usually, we are close to 60 in numbers; we had about 35 this meet. I was actually very impressed with how competitive we were with such a small lineup."
"We had a lot of PRs overall, but I don't think any of the athletes on the team, even James Bradley who qualified for Nationals, should be complacent with their performances," Barron said. "I think we're a much better team than we showed this weekend, and I'll be excited to see what this team can do when we put ourselves at full strength."
The Jumbos will look to post NCAA qualifiers at the Terrier Invitational, to be held at BU this Saturday.
