Despite the poor weather conditions on Saturday, the men's track and field team came away from the MIT Invitational with some strong performances.
For the second straight Saturday, the duo of sophomore Brad Nakanishi and senior co-captain Sam Read took the top two spots in the pole vault. Nakanishi cleared a height of 15-7 3/4, earning a new personal best — his best clearance before this weekend was 15-3 — and an NCAA provisional qualifier. The jump ranks as the 13th best by any Div. III athlete this season.
"It was pretty surprising; I wasn't going into the meet expecting myself to do that well, and I don't think Coach Ethan [Barron] was either," Nakanishi said. "Before the meet, he just told us to challenge ourselves, and that's what I did. This weekend shows that you do your best when you're just relaxed and you react — when you do what you've been training to do and aren't trying to force anything."
The height is just over the provisional qualifier of 15-7, but with over a month left before NCAAs for other athletes to clear the height, Nakanishi will likely have to vault closer to the automatic qualifier of 16-7 1/2 to secure a bid.
"It's still so early in the season, and it hasn't been that great of a spring, so as it gets sunnier and warmer out in championship season, people are going to go higher," Nakanishi said. "So hopefully I can improve on my performance this weekend in the next couple weeks."
Read took second in the event, clearing a height of 14-7 1/4, matching his outdoor personal best.
Though the tail wind behind the pole vaulters helped them on Saturday, the head wind coming down the home stretch made it difficult to run a fast time on the track. As a result, the Jumbos focused more on placing well than on hitting landmark times.
In a sprint to the finish in the 800-meter run, junior Connor Rose was just edged out, finishing in 1:58.49, a hundredth of a second behind MIT sophomore Patrick Marx. Rose is also a senior staff writer for the Daily.
In the 1,500-meter run, sophomore Kyle Marks finished in 4:06.19, quick enough for a seventh-place finish among 60 competitors.
"Going into it, I wanted to be just in the pack and keeping myself in a position, so when I did kick, I could catch a lot of people," Marks said. "I thought that it went out pretty slow, and for the first couple laps, I was in the back of the race, but I was really happy with how I finished the race and with my last 500 meters."
Close behind Marks were sophomore Matt Rand (4:08.37) and freshman Liam Cassidy (4:08.39).
"Matt Rand ran a big PR [personal record] in the 1,500," Marks said. "He never really runs that distance, so it was good to see him get some speed, and it was a good tune-up for future longer distances."
Sophomore Vinnie Lee also had a strong day, running 11.30 for third in the 100-meter dash and 22.98 for seventh in the 200-meter dash.
"As a whole, I think the team had some really good performances. It was a good meet for guys to fine-tune their tactics and see where their strengths are," Marks said. "We have a lot to look forward to."
The squad will split up this weekend, looking for final marks in its last regular season meet of 2011. Some members of the distance and mid-distance squads will head to Princeton to face off against top competition from Div. I, II and III at the Larry Ellis Invitational.
Meanwhile, on Saturday, the rest of the Jumbos will host the Tufts Invitational at the Dussault track, where the athletes will look for a final opportunity to hit qualifiers and give strong performances before the NESCAC Championships on April 30.
"It's a last chance to put down some fast times before NESCACs to get some good seed times [going into the championship season], so that will be the focus," Nakanishi said.
Going into this final regular season meet, the team is optimistic about the championship season.
"I think that while we might not have PR'ed necessarily so far this season, there have been some really quality meets and performances that bode well for later in the season, and I am confident that we'll get a lot of PRs and really good performance in the championship meets," Marks said.
