March brings the championship season in more sports than just NCAA basketball, and the men's track and field team is looking to get in on the madness. And with six Jumbos slated to make the trip to Indiana for the NCAA Div. III Championship this weekend, their odds look pretty good.
Tufts will be represented at the championship event, held at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, by the ECAC champion distance medley relay (DMR) team, as well as junior Jesse Faller and junior quad-captain Nick Welch in the 5,000-meter run and senior quad-captain James Bradley in the high jump.
The DMR squad enters the race ranked fifth on the NCAA performance list with the record-setting 10:00.63 it ran at the ECAC Championships last Friday. But the Jumbos will have their work cut out for them in the stacked 10-team field that is heading to NCAAs, as the teams all qualified with times within five seconds of one another.
"In terms of place, [my goal is to] be in the top eight," junior Billy Hale said. "Top eight is All-American. The time doesn't really matter. Once you make it to Nationals, it's all about how you finish."
Hale leads off for the DMR squad, running the 1,200-meter leg, while Faller anchors in the 1,600. Running the middle two legs are senior Phil Rotella in the 400 and junior Scott Brinkman in the 800.
"I think I improved upon my leg last weekend," Hale said. "The 1,200 is still a pretty new race to me. This is the first year that I've ever raced it, so every week I get a little more confident and a little more comfortable with the ability to lead off our DMR.
"The race completely changes at Nationals," Hale continued. "We know that all of these teams are capable of running fast times, so it's all about getting into position -- positioning ourselves in the race so that we place in the top eight ... Every single person is going into this meet with the same goal: to beat two other teams. I'm sure overall it will be a slower time, but it's all about place."
The Jumbos have already proven they are capable of beating two of the other nine teams they will be competing against. In last weekend's ECAC Championship meet, the DMR squad triumphed in a thriller when Faller out-kicked his rival anchors from Trinity and Muhlenberg to win the division title. Tufts will face off against these same two teams again on Friday.
"I'm extremely confident in our anchor leg, Jesse Faller ... If he is near other competitors, he will get the job done," Hale said. "Jesse has a very powerful kick, and while almost all of the anchor legs are National-caliber milers, so is Jesse, and whenever a relay is on the line, Jesse finds that extra gear."
"Everyone in the DMR is peaked and ready to race this weekend," Hale added. "We're all coming in healthy and in great shape and clicking on all cylinders."
Bradley will be making his second NCAA appearance in the high jump this weekend after finishing tied for 13th in his 2007 appearance. He is ranked fourth among 14 entrants with a jump height of 6'9".
"A lot of times it comes down to being really consistent and jumping well on your early jumps so that you're ahead of that guy who missed one," Bradley said. "There's some guys who [set personal records], and there's just guys who are better jumpers who will jump higher. But I think for most of the guys, it's about being consistent on the first couple heights."
Having experienced the atmosphere of NCAAs and that level of competition before will hopefully help, according to Bradley.
"The biggest thing for me is to try to stay relaxed," Bradley said. "The atmosphere is really exciting, and it's easy to get excited and run a little too fast, which doesn't help sometimes in the high jump."
On Saturday, Faller will return to the track to race the 5k, accompanied by teammate Welch. Faller was in the race last year, placing 13th, while Welch will be making his first appearance at Nationals.
Welch and Faller enter the race ranked 13th and 14th in a field of 14, respectively, with times of 14:43.24 and 14:43.25. Twelve seconds mark the difference from the runner ranked first to Faller in 14th.
"I'm shooting for top eight, to be All-American," Welch said. "Time-wise, it's hard to say. A championship-type race like this can go out slow or can go out fast; anything can happen ... At Nationals, you obviously have some of the best distance runners in the country, so I don't think not beating a certain number of them should necessarily be a marker of success, but I would certainly love to shoot for that All-American spot.
"If I had to guess, I don't think it would go out so fast that it's going to string everybody out and separate," Welch continued. "So I'd like to just be in contact with the front half of the race for the first half of the race. At that point, there's only so much strategizing you can do, so I should just be looking to catch each guy in front of me over the last mile or 2k."
This will be the first 5k Welch and Faller will race together this season.
"It's hopefully a good situation that we each have each other," said Welch, whose provisional qualifier made the NCAA cut earlier this week. "We obviously each have to do the same work, but I know for me it helps to have a teammate in the field -- another jersey in the field that you can cue off of."
"At New Englands, a month or so ago, [Faller] showed that he's very able to double," Welch continued. "That was in a span of three hours -- at least now he'll have a full night's sleep between [the DMR and the 5k]. He has the speed that you need in a championship race to go with guys in the last mile when it picks up ... I think he should feel confident that he could run with any of the guys that we're both toe on the line with."
The Jumbos will have twice as many people at the meet this year compared to last indoor season. And with track, field and relay events represented, the program has been strong all around this season.
"The fact that we're bringing six different guys to Nationals says a lot about Tufts' track program, and to find out that Nick made the 5k just made going to Nationals that much more exciting for the team," Hale said.
