Jumbos capture third Tufts Invitational

On Saturday, freshman Nate Cleveland ran the 600 meter race almost as quickly as anyone in Tufts history with a time of 1:22.74.

Minutes later, sophomore Pat Mahoney ran it even faster.

Mahoney and Cleveland's 1-2 finish in the 600, with Mahoney breaking the school record of 1:22.49 set last year by classmate Shawn Hansberry with a time of 1.22.37, were part of a litany of impressive individual efforts that carried the Jumbos to a team victory at the Tufts Invitational III on Saturday.

The Jumbos battled point for point with Ithaca College for most of the late morning and early afternoon before distancing themselves from the field with a string of point-reaping middle and long distance runs. At the end of the day, Tufts (155 points) was the only team in the field of 14 to eclipse 100 team points. RPI (98.5) finished second, followed by Springfield College (97) and Ithaca (94.5), which drifted back into fourth place.

The early highlight of the meet came in the weight throw when junior Dan March won with a personal best 16.32 meters. The throw was long enough to qualify him provisionally for the Division III NCAA National Championship meet. If enough athletes don't automatically qualify for the meet, March will be among a pool of applicants to fill in the spots.

But the excitement seemed to peak in the 600, when Cleveland, running that distance for only the second time, used a strong finish to eke out first place in his heat. He was about a quarter of a second in front of heat runner-up Jack Morgan of Amherst, and also about a quarter of a second slower than the school record.

However, Mahoney toppled that mark in the final 600 heat.

"Mahoney was awesome, and he can definitely run faster than that," assistant coach Ethan Barron said.

Cleveland agreed.

"Pat ran a great race," he said. "I think we could both run faster [if we ran in the same heat] because we could work off of each other and push each other."

"Neither result surprised me, but both really pleased me," coach Connie Putnam said. "If you have one guy who's attacking a record, the other guy's going to do the same thing."

In the jumps, freshman Fred Jones, in his first meet back from a hip flexor injury, finished first in the long jump with a 6.68 meter leap and then finished second in the triple jump, tying his own school record of 14.22 meter.

"He was a little tentative after the long jump," Putnam said. "But when he came back fine in the triple jump, I think that gave him the confidence to realize he wasn't that hurt."

Behind Jones, junior Nate Thompson finished fourth in the long jump and fifth in the triple, and also garnered fourth place on the basis of his 7.96 seconds in the hurdles.

The climax to the day came when sophomore Matt Lacey, after hanging in second place for the first half of the 5000, blew away the field over the final mile and a half, lapping over half of his competitors, winning by over 25 seconds, and breaking his personal record by seven seconds with a time of 15:11.03.

"If he had been in a field where a few guys were pushing him and running with him, he could have approached 15 flat," Putnam said.

"Better competition probably would have helped," agreed Lacey, who bruised his leg on Wednesday and was unable to run on Thursday. "I was nearing my max, but other runners probably could have extended it for awhile. My last two laps were really slow. I was definitely bonking at the end."

The Jumbos used team efforts to dominate the long distance events, placing eight runners in scoring positions in three different races.

In the 1500, junior Nate Brigham (4:04.45) finished second, freshman Scott Merrick (4:05.75) and sophomore Matt Fortin (4:08.39) finished fifth and sixth respectively, and sophomore Kyle Doran (4:09.03) finished eighth.

Early on in the day, the Jumbos took care of business in the 3000 when junior Mike Don (8:49.26), Fortin (8:50.7), and sophomore Neil Orfield (9:08.6) finished third, fourth, and eighth, respectively.

By the time Lacey and fifth-place finisher junior Brian McNamara combined for 14 points in the 5000, Tufts had already distanced itself considerably from the baker's dozen of teams trying to hang with Tufts.

But even then, the Jumbos weren't quite done, wrapping up third place in the 4x400 meter relay and second in the 4x800.

"I almost wish it had been closer at the end, so our relay teams could run with some pressure on them," Putnam said.

Other notable Jumbo performances were sophomore Seth LaPierre's second place in the pole vault, freshman Ryan Byrnes' fifth out of 52 in the shot-put, junior Rae Carre's second place in the 400 and sixth in the 200, junior Evan Blaser's fifth place in the high jump, and freshman Dan Sullivan's fifth and Don's seventh in the 800 meter race.