The men's track and field team hit the outdoor oval for the first time of the 2009 season on Saturday, with the team hosting the annual Snowflake Classic.
The Jumbos took third in the meet with 104.5 points, falling to RPI and Bates with 141 and 132.5 points, respectively. But the Jumbos registered wins individually, closing the outing with three individual victories.
Two weeks after running the 5,000 meters at Nationals, junior quad-captain Nick Welch was back at it, giving the Jumbos one of their victories with a win in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Welch finished the race in 9:50.06, also posting the fastest seeding time with a blazing 9:34.41.
Sophomore David Dormon took first in the shot put, throwing a distance of 43'8". The Jumbos also took second, fifth and seventh in the shot put. Freshman Matt Williams threw 43'3" to secure second place, while senior quad-captain Skip Pagel threw a distance of 40'8", a personal record, to take fifth. Junior Jared Engelking claimed seventh with a distance of 40'. "I think [the throwers] are definitely stronger than we were last year," Pagel said. "We're deeper, but we don't have the high caliber. They haven't caught up to Joe Brown [LA '08] yet, at least in the hammer, but I think pretty soon, we should be there."
Also placing in the top three for the Jumbo throwing squad were sophomore Alex Gresham, who took third in the hammer throw with a distance of 145'8", and freshman Luke Lamothe, who claimed second in the javelin with 172'3".
The final Tufts victory came from junior Jesse Faller, also recently returned from Nationals, who crossed the line first in the 1,500-meter run. With a 3:59.86 clip, Faller was four seconds ahead of the second-place runner.
Faller returned later in the meet to also take fourth in the 800-meter run in 2:00.37.
Accompanying Faller in scoring in the 1,500-meter run were juniors Billy Hale in fourth place and Matt Tirrell in eighth.
Tirrell snuck into scoring position by winning the second heat of the 1,500 with a time that was a personal best by about 10 seconds. For Tirrell, the race was his first after coming back from an injury that prevented him from competing during all of this past indoor track season and most of last year's outdoor season.
"I have an ankle problem from the tight turns on the indoor track, and that would act up when I ran workouts during indoor, and then I wouldn't be able to run again until that cooled down," Tirrell said. "It was sick to be back. It definitely went a lot better than I expected. I had no idea what kind of shape I was in.
"It was probably the first time I've ever led a race from the beginning," continued Tirrell, who took the lead in the second heat from early on. "Usually I sit and kick, but this weekend, I worked on my start a lot, and it paid off this time. I didn't even know I was capable of running that time at all, and now with the confidence from this race, I hope to keep dropping my time."
Other top performers for the Jumbos were junior Isaiah Paramore, who took second in the high jump with a height of 6'1", and senior Phil Rotella, who took fourth in the 400-meter dash in 50.91.
A new addition to the Tufts decathletes, sophomore James Wheeler, competed in two of the events featured in the decathlon Saturday -- the pole vault and the high jump -- in which he took 16th and fourth, respectively.
"[Wheeler] did really well," Pagel said. "He made a height in the pole vault, and he went [5'11"] in the high jump, both of which are really good for early in the season, especially since he hasn't done pole vault or high jump since high school."
The Jumbos will continue their spring season at the Stonehill Invitational on Saturday.
