In the first major invitational of the spring semester, the men's track and field team overcame unfavorable weather to earn a third-place finish at the Fourth Annual Yellow Jacket Invitation in Springfield, Mass. Div. I Vermont and UMass Amherst were the only teams to surpass Tufts.
"We didn't see any other NESCAC school this week, so it was just another chance to sharpen our skills and get used to outdoors in New England," senior tri-captain David Sutherland said.
The Jumbos registered points in 11 events a staggering number, given the quality of competition. Per usual, sprints and field events held their own, contributing several scoring athletes. But it was the distance and middle-distance contingents that propelled Tufts into the top three overall.
Junior Marshall Pagano notched Tufts' lone individual win, out-kicking his competitor in the 3,000-meter steeplechase by just over one second to seal the victory, despite running much slower than his seed time of 9:35.27.
"It's always fun being able to race for the win," Pagano said. "I went out conservatively and tried to bring the pace down a little bit each lap. My hurdle form and water barriers weren't as sharp as I would've liked them to be, but it was still a good baseline."
Nearly all of the top third of runners at the meet ran more slowly than their seed times indicated they should have. One of Tufts' deeper races, the 5,000 featured two Jumbos in the top seven, as sophomore James Traester and junior Sam Garfield finished fifth and seventh, respectively.
The 1,500 featured two All-Americans in senior tri-captain Jamie Norton and sophomore Mitchell Black, who were bested only by Keene State senior Ryan Widzgowski. Widzgowski barely edged out Norton to emerge victorious, out-leaning him by less than two-tenths of one second, while Black trailed not far behind in third place.
Senior Graham Beutler and freshman Nick Usoff, who ran the open 400 and the 400-meter hurdles, respectively, both scored as well. Beutler took fourth in a tight race, in which the top four runners all finished within seven-tenths of a second of one another, and Usoff finished sixth in an unusually fast performance for Tufts in the 400-meter hurdles.
Hoping to escape the inhospitable racing conditions that had marred last weekend's first and only home meet of the season, Tufts instead encountered equally unforgiving weather, which was ostensibly responsible for the slower times, particularly in longer events.
"The meet this weekend was very windy," sophomore Alex Kasemir said. "At least it didn't rain, but the meet took forever and it was pretty cold."
Kasemir, who did not fare as well as he was accustomed to the open 400, compensated for his initial lackluster performance in the 4x400 relay event alongside Beutler and sophomores Veer Bhalla and Woody Butler.
Rather than predetermine the 4x400 team that would compete in the relay, however, teams were entered into a "draft," by which the coaches chose the final four that would run together.
"Personally, I didn't do too well in the open 400, but we had 'drafted' 4x400 [teams] at the end of the meet," Kasemir said. "My team [that consisted of me, Graham Beutler], Veer [Bhalla], and Woody [Butler] won and that was pretty fun. [All of our] teams were pretty stacked, and we finished [first and third] in the meet."
Although Tufts' 'A' and 'B' teams were seeded at 3:24.90, as a result of the "draft," the former beat out a Central Connecticut 'A' team that was slated at 3:18.00, more than six seconds faster. In a nail-biter, Tufts 'A' crossed the line in 3:24.90, Central Connecticut 'A' in 3:24.28. Tufts 'B' finished third in a time of 3:25.10.
Though only one Tufts team could outright win the 4x400, both teams won sartorially in a nod to the Tufts teams of old.
"We got to wear old-school uniforms, so it was brown versus blue," Beutler said. "It was great to see the team come together, even after such a long and cold day, for some friendly competition. We have a great sense of team unity, which I'm excited about with just three weeks until NESCACs."
Off the track, Sutherland finished eighth in the pole vault after a disappointing effort last week at Tufts' Snowflake Classic, in which he and three teammates did not clear the bar. This time around, Sutherland recorded a clearance of 12' 7 1/2".
The tandem of junior Brian Williamson and sophomore Atticus Swett produced yet again for the Jumbos in the throws. Williamson notched a pair of sixth-place finishes in the hammer throw and the shot-put, while Swett finished fifth in discus. Also placing among the top 10 in the discus were freshman Ifeoluwa Adebayo and sophomore Alex Karys, who finished eighth and ninth.
This weekend, Tufts looks to continue its impressive run at the George Davis Invitational at UMass Lowell.
