On a weekend that was all about rising to the occasion, the men's track and field team didn't have what it took to exceed its expected sixth-place finish. The Jumbos, seeded sixth among 25 teams, emerged from the New England Div. III Championships at Springfield College still in sixth place.
The competition for the title was close, as MIT barely out-performed Williams to finish with 114 points to the Ephs' 112, nearly 30 points ahead of third-place Springfield. Bates, Bowdoin and host Springfield all finished ahead of Tufts, who had 44 points.
"[The meet went] pretty well," sophomore Brad Nakanishi said. "[Coach] Ethan [Barron] had predicted us to do just about as well as we did for our team. It's tough because we don't really have a lot of guys to cover all the events like Williams and MIT do. In a bunch of events, we just had one person competing."
The highest finisher for the Jumbos was Nakanishi in the pole vault, who cleared 14-11 among 22 competitors to finish as the runner-up.
"It went really well," Nakanishi said of his performance. "It was pretty intense competition, and I knew that going into it, so I wanted to make sure that I kept my misses to a minimum, so each attempt mattered, whether it was my opening height or my last jump."
Nakanishi's jump matched his indoor personal record, set earlier this season, and the sophomore hopes to hit the NCAA provisional qualifier of 15-5 in the next few weeks before the national meet in mid-March.
On the track, sophomore Sam Haney took third in the mile run with a time of 4:19.83. Among the 21 athletes in the event, the winner, MIT sophomore Kyle Hannon, ran a 4:17.56, just over two seconds ahead of Haney.
Haney also anchored the distance medley relay, bringing home another third-place finish for Tufts. Freshman Brian McLaughlin led the relay in the 1,200-meter leg, handing off to sophomore Lawrence Xia in the 400-meter leg, then to sophomore Adam Brosh in the 800-meter and finally to Haney in the 1600-meter.
Only three other individuals for Tufts scored in running events. Freshman Jamie Norton took fifth among 21 athletes in the 1,000-meter run. In the 5,000-meter run, Tufts had two athletes score — sophomore Matt Rand came in fourth with a time of 15:19.81, just under four seconds behind first place, and freshman teammate Ben Wallis, who finished in 15:24.82, came in seventh.
The Jumbos also took home points in the jumping events, with Blair taking sixth in the high jump, clearing a height of 6-2, three inches lower than the winning height. Classmate Gbola Ajayi took eighth in the triple jump, bounding 45-0 1/4. In the weight throw on Saturday, senior Alex Gresham earned 12th with a toss of 50-2 1/2 — enough for a season best and an Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) qualifier.
In the pentathlon the night before, also at Springfield, Tufts earned points from two scorers, as Blair took third with 3,248 points. His highest point total came from the high jump, when he cleared a height of 6-4. Freshman Daniel Lange-Vagle gave the Jumbos two points, coming in with a seventh place finish and 2,741 points.
"[The pentathlon] felt great," Blair said. "Every event built off the momentum from the event before. I had a big PR [personal record] in long jump and shot put, had a good hurdles race and barely made it over a height in high jump that I didn't think I would."
Blair will compete in the pentathlon again in two weeks at ECACs in New York City, where he is gunning for the NCAA provisional qualifier of 3,350 points.
The Jumbos are optimistic about their ability to perform better against these same teams in the outdoor season, where the main focus is on the NESCAC Championships — a competition that does not take place during the indoor season. Many athletes ended their indoor season with Div. IIIs, while others will continue on to Boston University this weekend with the All-New England Championships this Friday and Saturday, looking to set new personal bests and, for some, hit national qualifiers.
Still, the goals this weekend, Nakanishi said, are to simply "go out, compete and have fun."
"[We'll] try and get some big marks," he said.
