Heather Theiss, Women's Track and Field
At the third and final Tufts Invitational of the season and the next-to-last meet before the New England Div. III Championships at Bowdoin College, Jumbo freshman Heather Theiss continued her outstanding rookie campaign on the Hill this weekend, placing first among college-affiliated athletes and second overall in the pole vault and breaking her own school record in the process.
Theiss posted a height of 11'2 1/2", just half an inch short of the provisional mark for the NCAA Championships at Rose-Hulman in March. Theiss has ruled the recent Gantcher Center meets, breaking the school record set last season by sophomore Allison Fechter with a 10'8" vault on Jan. 17 at a meet in which she also took first place. Prior to that vault, Theiss' personal best had been 10'4". She also earned All-New England standards at the meet.
Theiss' performance also contributed directly to Tufts' No. 1 spot in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's (USTFCCCA) weekly indoor rankings, as her marks helped the team's point total top runner-up North Central College by over four points.
With championship season following next weekend's Valentine Invitational at BU and only a half inch separating her from a Nationals berth, Theiss' performance in the next couple of weeks figures to be crucial.
Jon Pierce, Men's Basketball
Despite the men's basketball team's weekend struggles, junior co-captain Jon Pierce continued to find success, exploding for an aggregate 56 points in two games and leading all scorers in both contests. Against Amherst, the 6'5" forward tallied 29 points and eight rebounds in 39 minutes while racking up 27 and seven against Trinity in 38 minutes, shooting a stellar 10-19 from the floor in each game. Earlier in the week, Pierce earned a double-double in a non-conference loss to UMass Dartmouth.
On Saturday, Pierce was presented with a 1,000-point ball before the game, as he passed the mark on Nov. 30th on his way to cracking the top 10 in Jumbos' scoring history. Pierce, who has accumulated 1,422 points in three years on the Hill after transferring from Drew University, leads the conference with 22.1 points per game and 8.6 rebounds per game. With only one game left this season, the former NESCAC Rookie of the Year will likely fall just short of entering Tufts' top five all-time leading scorers in program history.
