The men's track and field team had a strong showing this weekend, split between Boston University for the Valentine Invitational and the Gantcher Center for the Tufts Invitational III.
The sole men's event on Friday was the Distance Medley Relay at BU. The squad, which consisted of freshmen Jamie Norton in the 1200-meter leg and Graham Beutler in the 400 and sophomores Jeff Marvel in the 800 and Sam Haney in the 1600 anchor leg, just slipped in under the NCAA provisional qualifier of 10:09. The squad clocked in at a time of 10:05.68 on the banked track, which converts to a 10:08.68.
The Jumbos were in the slower of the two heats on Friday, caught in a gap between a lead runner and the main pack, leaving Haney to run his entire leg alone.
The time was good enough for the squad to claim 12th overall at the meet. But with five Div. III schools finishing ahead of them at this meet alone — four of which come from New England — their time will likely not be enough to travel to NCAAs. The slowest time that earned the chance to compete last year was 10:03.86. The automatic qualifier for the event is a time of 9:59.
The squad, however, is optimistic that in the weeks to come they can cut their time down and earn one of the coveted spots.
"I think the only goal we'll have when we run it again is going to Nationals, which will probably take going close to [the automatic qualifier,] which I think is possible, but we'll all need to have a great race on the same day, which is not easy to do," Haney said.
Norton, Marvel and Haney returned to BU on Saturday to deliver another set of strong performances. Haney and Norton ran the mile, finishing in 4:17.02 and 4:19.05, respectively.
"I could feel the effects of running the day before and I didn't go quite as fast as I wanted to, but given how I felt, it was a pretty good time," Haney said.
Freshman Brian McLaughlin also had a strong day in the mile, finishing in 4:24.75.
Marvel, the only runner to go sub-2:00 in the 800 before Saturday's meet, was one of five Jumbos to do so at BU.
Marvel finished in a time of 1:54.94, while junior Connor Rose was just behind with a personal record of 1:54.97. Sophomores Thiago Lima and Adam Brosh broke the two-minute barrier for the first time ever, crossing the line in 1:58.13 and 1:58.59, respectively, while classmate Dan Kirschner was right in the mix as well with a time of 1:58.22.
Freshman Bobby McShane and junior Jeff Prescott continued to show the depth of Tufts' middle-distance squad with strong performances in the 1,000-meter run. McShane finished in a time of 2:32.21, while Prescott, returning from injury, finished in a personal best of 2:35.34.
"The race went really well," Prescott said. "I was surprised about my fitness because I've really only been biking for the past two weeks, except for one workout Tuesday. It was a really even split race, and I felt really good."
This was the last weekend to qualify for Div. IIIs and all of the middle distance squad accomplished just that.
"As a whole, all of these performances were something that mid-distance knew they were capable of, but it's great to have them all on one day," Prescott said. "Somehow, year in and year out, it has all come together at Valentine, and it was really exciting to be there right in the middle of it."
Another big PR of the day came from freshman Liam Cassidy in the 3,000-meter run, who crossed the line in a time of 8:34.75, improving 13 seconds from his first 3K of the season.
The 4x400 relay also gave a strong performance, finishing in a time of 3:25.82. The foursome consisted of sophomore Vinnie Lee, juniors Rose and Ben Crastnopol and freshman Clint Porte.
Back at Tufts, some big performances came from the field athletes on Saturday. Sophomore Curtis Yancy won the weight throw with a toss of 52-3 1/4, over five feet better than his previous personal record, which was set last weekend at the Tufts Invitational II. Yancy also took fourth in the shot put with a throw of 42-7.
Though Tufts had a successful weekend, so did the other top schools of New England, which will force the Jumbos to fight their hardest this Friday and Saturday at Div. III New England Championships.
"I think we look good, but compared to some other teams we don't look as good as we have in previous years," Haney said. "We're a strong team, but this weekend guys on other teams had amazing performances, so it will be interesting to see how we do against them at Div. IIIs."
