Claiming three event victories, including another NCAA provisional qualifying time for the distance medley relay (DMR) team, in the final tune-up before NCAA Championships, the men's track and field team secured a tie for seventh place out of 50 scoring teams at the ECAC Div. III Championships this weekend within the friendly confines of the Gantcher Center.
The DMR team crossed the finish line with a time of 10:00.63 to win the race and edge out runner-up Muhlenberg by .07 seconds. The relay group, consisting of junior Billy Hale (1200m), senior Phil Rotella (400m), junior Scott Brinkman (800m) and junior Jesse Faller (1,600m), set a new meet record and improved their provisional qualifying standard of 10:02.33 (converted to account for BU's banked track) from Open New England Championships at Boston University the weekend of Feb. 27.
The time also improved the relay's rankings to fifth on the NCAA Championships performance list.
"I was equally pleased with the DMR this week as I was last week," coach Ethan Barron said. "We saw basically the exact same times here on a flat track that we saw at BU on the bank, which was very impressive and bodes well for next weekend at Nationals."
"The splits were almost identical," Barron continued. "The 400 leg was a little bit slower, but that's the leg that most benefits from the bank, so nothing unexpected."
The two other Jumbo victories on the weekend came from senior quad-captains in individual events. Senior quad-captain Skip Pagel came away with a victory in the pentathlon, scoring 3,387 points, while fellow quad-captain James Bradley took first in the high jump at a height of 6'6.25".
Pagel narrowly defeated Buffalo State junior Tim Diegelman by 15 points to clinch the win. He claimed third in both the 1,000 meter with a mark of 2:45.61 and in the shot put with a distance of 37'1 1/4".
"[Pagel] had a very good performance in the pentathlon," Barron said. "[He] started out with a huge PR in the hurdles and added PRs in the high jump and the 1,000 to close well and squeak out a victory."
Pagel's final score of 3,387 was just 13 points shy of the NCAA provisional qualifier of 3,400.
"I had a personal best in the hurdles, which I was really happy about. My long jump and shot put didn't go that well, but overall, it was okay," Pagel said. "I was two feet off the board in the long jump. If I had been on the board and hit that jump, it would have been like an extra 100 points, and I definitely would have gone to Nationals."
Meanwhile, Bradley went head to head against five competitors who all cleared the winning height of 6'6 1/4", but Bradley alone had no misses to claim the win.
"[This weekend] was like a tune-up," Bradley said. "I was really pleased with it. I was a lot more relaxed than I was at [Regionals]."
Also competing for Tufts this weekend was the men's 4x800 crew, which raced at BU in the IC4A Championship. The relay team of juniors Jason Hanrahan and Scott Brinkman, sophomore Corey Melnick and freshman Connor Rose ran a time of 7:53.58, seconds shy of the school record of 7.48.7, set in 1985.
"I thought they ran really hard," Barron said. "They had a chance to break the school record, and they really put it out there, and I still think if I put those same four runners on the line next week that they could take down the school record if they all put it out there."
With only one meet left on the winter schedule, the squad will now turn its attention to the NCAA Div. III Championships, set to commence this weekend at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Ind.
