Men's Track and Field | Tufts performs well but fails to meet any qualifying marks

    In most sports, wins and losses determine whether a given team makes the playoffs. In men's track, that's not the case; you can win all the races or dual meets you want, but if you don't meet the qualifying standards for the postseason, you're not going anywhere.
    Tufts managed to have a solid day under poor weather conditions at the unscored Solomon Invitational hosted by Northeastern University, taking first in six of the 20 events at the meet. But as with any track meet at this point in the season, the Jumbos were less focused on placement and more concerned with achieving qualifying times for NESCACs and NCAAs, which they failed to meet across the board.
    "We're only a couple weeks away from the NESCAC Championship meet, so our goal was to get some more qualifying times for some individuals and improve on performances," senior quad-captain Colin Fitzgerald said.
    "We were trying to do the same thing we always try to do in pre-championship meets," senior quad-captain James Bradley added. "We're all just trying to get good qualifying marks for those meets and trying to continue our training."
    Junior Jesse Faller led the way for the Jumbos, taking first among 12 competitors in the 5,000-meter run, an event in which he earned All-American status during the winter season but had not competed in since. His time of 15:16.52 seconds, while far from his indoor All-American mark of 14:35.46, was just less than eight seconds ahead of the next closest finisher.
    "I'm running the 5k next weekend at Princeton, and that is more of a 100 percent race effort, so this weekend was more of a warm-up for next," Faller said. "My goal was to run the first mile in about five minutes and then every mile after that faster, so it was a relatively easy run.
    "It felt pretty good," he continued. "I ran most of the race in front; for about the first six laps, I was pacing the pack, and then I surged with about six laps to go and ran the last mile and a half by myself. It felt good to win."
    Bradley won the high jump with a height of 6'6'' against a relatively weak field — there were only five competitors, and three of them failed to register a single jump.
    "I was pretty happy with it," Bradley said. "Not so much the win — it was down pouring and freezing and windy, but I thought I did a pretty good job in the weather. It was good to get an outdoor jump in the cold, so you get used to it."
    Senior quad-captain Skip Pagel also took first among a five-man field in the 400-meter hurdles, winning with a time of 58.58 seconds, while sophomore Sam Read and junior Jared Engelking continued the trend of success against less-than-stellar competition, tying for the best mark in a field of seven with a height of 13'3'' in the pole vault.
    Meanwhile, sophomores Andrew Bellet and Sam Hutchinson took first and second, respectively, in the 10,000-meter run, though that accomplishment was somewhat sullied by the fact that the event featured only three total participants, with the runner that came in third finishing over two minutes behind Hutchinson.
    The final first-place finish for Tufts came in the 4x100-meter relay, in which the Jumbos beat out Bridgewater State, the only other relay squad.
    Tufts also saw relatively strong performances from its sprinters, as sophomore James Wheeler and Fitzgerald took second and third in the 100-meter dash. Despite these high finishes, however, the times were not what the team was hoping for, as the poor conditions were simply overbearing for the entire field.
    "It was a very bad day for sprinters," Fitzgerald said. "The weather was against us; there was a headwind, rain and cold temperatures. I'm happy with how I placed, but none of the times were that impressive for sprinters."
    The meet also marked the return of junior Andrew Longley, the Tufts record-holder for the indoor 200-meter dash, from an injury that cost him nearly a year of action.
    "My injury was developed first last April and May just by over-running," Longley said. "It was misdiagnosed at first, but it turned out to be a stress fracture in my hip, which caused tendonitis in my groin and adductor muscles. It got a little better, but then I over-trained in the summer and went to Australia and didn't get the best therapy there. But since then [athletic trainer Pat Cordeiro], [strength trainer Dan Kopsco] and [coach Ethan Barron] have given me really good care and I've gotten much better. I'm really thankful that they helped me out so much."
    Longley finished sixth in the 100-meter dash but said that he was not concerned with his placement, as he was just happy to be healthy again.
    "This is the first time I've run since May of last year," Longley said. "Even though we had some of the worst conditions I've ever run in, it felt great to complete a race and compete without pain. It meant a lot to me to be able to do that, and now that I'm past that, I can concentrate on getting better and getting into the form that I want to be for later in the season so we can go far in the postseason."
    While it may seem that the Jumbos' participation in this meet was all for naught — they failed to register any championship qualifying marks under the circumstances — Bradley maintained that the team was not distraught by the weather's impact on its performance.
    "I think most of the guys understand that we're in New England and it's cold," Bradley said. "The beginning of the season is always cold, so the NESCAC marks are easy to hit for most guys. Usually we just hope to get some nice weather so we can do well. Saturday, everyone was going through the same stuff, so even though people didn't throw down qualifying marks, we all ran through it. We just have to hope for better weather next week."
    Tufts will now move on to two Div. I meets over the coming weekend, as some will take part in the Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton University on Friday while others will travel to the Dartmouth Invitational in New Hampshire on Saturday. The Jumbos' goals for the meets will be the same as any regular-season event: fulfilling qualification standards for championship competitions.
    "We'll again be looking for qualification marks," Fitzgerald said. "We're always looking for personal bests. Mostly, we want to continue improving and get a sense of what our team will look like for NESCACs. They're similar goals to any week."