Sophomore Jeff Marvel and junior Connor Rose took full advantage of an famously fast track this weekend at the All-New England Championships at BU. Both Jumbos stepped on the track Friday night in the fourth and final heat of the preliminaries for the 800-meter run, and when they stepped off, both had set new personal records (PRs), broken the school record and qualified for NCAAs.
Marvel and Rose, who is also a senior staff writer for the Daily, took second and third in their heat, with times of 1:52.12 and 1:52.44, respectively, both of which shattered the school record of 1:53.10 that was set by James Lavallee in 1994.
"It was good competition, and it set up perfectly, so I'm really happy with it," Marvel said. "Since there was such great competition, my plan was just to start out in the back and let them pull me out and then start to move up in the last few laps and finish strong."
Marvel and Rose both did just that, in by far the fastest heat of the event. UConn's senior Michael Rutt finished first, over 2.5 seconds ahead of any other athlete in the prelims, with an impressive 1:48.35.
"When a guy runs that fast and he takes the heat out that quick, it's a lot easier to run a faster time than when you start out the race slower and have to make up ground," Marvel said.
Marvel's time on the banked track converts to 1:52.72 on the flat track, which narrowly slips under the automatic NCAA qualifier of 1:52.80. Rose's time converts to a 1:53.04, well under the provisional qualifier of 1:54.90 and just .24 seconds off the automatic pace.
While Marvel will definitely compete at NCAAs in two weeks at Capital University in Ohio, Rose's fate depends on how many athletes the NCAA accepts into the event, a number usually between 12 and 16. Currently, Rose's time ranks him as the 10th fastest Div. III athlete in the 800 meters nationally, while Marvel is just ahead in eighth.
"[Connor] ran awesome. It was definitely a long time coming," Marvel said. "I think he's had the ability to run that fast — it was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time and having the opportunity to run that fast. It was a great race for him."
Next weekend is the last chance for other athletes around the country to hit the automatic qualifier and will be Rose's final shot at securing a trip to Nationals. Next week, he plans to run the same event at the IC4As at BU.
Both Rose and Marvel's record-breaking times were new PRs by more than 2.5 seconds each. Marvel bested his indoor PR of 1:54.94, and Rose improved his from 1:54.97, both set earlier this season at the Valentine Invitational on the same banked track.
The pair gained entry into the finals in the 800-meter on Saturday, which included 10 athletes. Marvel's time in the prelims was first among Div. III athletes and ranked him sixth overall heading into the finals, while Rose was the last athlete to qualify for the finals. Marvel took eighth with a time of 1:55.78, while Rose, who sat out part of the indoor season due to an Achilles injury, rested his foot instead of racing.
"It's definitely hard to PR by 2.8 seconds and to feel good the next day, so that was a tough race," Marvel said. "I got out well, but I just didn't have the energy left to close from racing the day before."
Another strong performance from the middle-distance crew came from freshman Jamie Norton in the 1,000-meter run. In the prelims on Friday evening, Norton posted a PR with a time of 2:31.47, winning his heat and capturing the sixth-fastest mark of the day. The time bested his old PR of 2:32.14, run earlier this season at the Bowdoin Invitational.
"Jamie set a freshman record in the 1,000," Marvel said. "It seems like he PRs every weekend that he races. He's really fun to watch race, and especially since he is a freshman, it seems like he has a lot of room to improve and a lot to give to the team in the future."
But Norton's big weekend did not end there. In the finals of the event on Saturday, he set yet another personal best, running a time of 2:29.98, earning sixth and becoming the only freshman in Tufts' history to break the 2:30 mark in the 1,000-meter. According to Norton, the first 200 meters in the final was the fastest lap of his life. He never looked back.
"There was just a fast group of people," Norton said. "In that heat, there were at least four people who have run under 2:28, so those guys were going to win it and going for a really fast time, so [everyone] went out hard. All I had to do was hold on. I hadn't really ever been in that position before; a lot of other races I've been in have gone out slow."
Sophomore Sam Haney's Saturday also included a big PR, as he ran 4:14.98 in the mile, scoring fifth from an unseeded heat. The front pack went out in 2:11 for the first 800 meters, after which Haney closed hard with a 2:03 in the second half of the race — evidence that with faster competition from start to finish, Haney would likely have finished even faster.
"[Haney] knows he's got a lot more in him," Norton said. "He was frustrated that the race went out so slow. It's obviously a really fast time, but he's looking for more next week to see what he can do."
Freshman Liam Cassidy added another best in the mile, running a 4:18.77 for his first time under the 4:20-mile barrier.
On the field side of events, sophomore Gbola Ajayi set personal bests in both the long jump and the triple jump. He advanced to the finals of both events, where his jump of 45-7 3/4 in the triple jump earned him seventh and his jump of 2-10 3/4 in the long jump earned him ninth.
The Jumbos also put together a successful crew of relays this weekend. In the 4x800-meter relay, sophomores Dan Kirschner, Adam Brosh and Thiago Lima and freshman Bobby McShane combined for a time of 7:53.81, qualifying for next weekend's ECAC Championships. The foursome competed on tired legs, for Kirschner, Brosh and McShane had all competed the night before.
The 4x400 team of junior Ben Crastnopol, sophomore Vinnie Lee and freshmen Clint Porte and Graham Beutler ran a time of 3:22.23, the fastest mark posted by the relay yet this season.
Among 35 scoring Div. I, II and III schools at the meet, Tufts tied for 22nd. Yet the squad was not looking for a high team placement this weekend, but rather focused on putting people in the events where they had the most potential to qualify for future weeks.
The strong performances this weekend bode well for the weeks to come. The PRs from Marvel, Haney and Norton mean the three could do big things next weekend when they combine with a 400-meter runner — likely from the successful 4x400 relay of this weekend — to try to improve Tufts' NCAA provisional qualifier in the distance medley relay.
"It was a great weekend for us overall. A lot of guys were disappointed with Div. IIIs, because we came in sixth, but this was a redeeming weekend for a lot of guys," Norton said. "People threw down fast times that we had hoped to run last weekend."
The team will split between IC4A's and the ECAC Championships at the Armory in New York City to get in some final personal bests and national qualifiers.
