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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Men's Track and Field | Jumbos perform well across multiple weekend meets

The men's track and field team was split between three meets over the weekend: the last competitions before the NESCAC Championship this Saturday. The majority of the squad traveled to MIT on Saturday for the Sean Collier Invitational. Named in honor of the MIT police officer who was killed last April, the meet featured teams of all divisions from across New England.

The best performance at the meet for the Jumbos came from the 4x100-meter relay team. Consisting of senior Graham Beutler, freshman Blake Coolidge, sophomore Bryson Hoover-Hankerson and senior Andrew Osborne, the squad won with a time of 43.41 seconds.

Junior thrower Brian Williamson had a solid day in the pit, placing in the top-five in three events. He placed third in shot-put with a throw of 49' 11 3/4", fourth in the hammer throw with a toss of 172' and fifth in discus with a heave of 131' 5". Classmate Atticus Swett had a similarly strong performance, finishing in the top six in the same three events. His discus throw of 139' 11" earned him third place, while his shot-put of 47' 10 1/2" earned fourth place and his hammer throw of 142' 10" earned him sixth.

Back on the track, junior Joseph St. Pierre placed well in two events, finishing third in the 800-meter with a time of 1:58.67 and fourth in the 1,500-meter with a time of 4:02.04.

"We've got great talent up front, but experience has proven depth to be just as integral in the building of a championship team," St. Pierre said. "[The] Sean Collier [Invitational] gave us the chance to fine-tune the team and really give us the chance to set some great times and marks so as to prove that we can compete in any event against any team come postseason."

Another athlete competing in multiple events, freshman Nick Usoff, showed off his versatility, placing third in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 56.38, and fourth in javelin with a throw of 174' 04".

"[I'm] really happy with how I did," Usoff said. "I executed my race plan well in the 400-hurdles and came close to my personal best, and my throw moved me up to second seed in the javelin going into NESCACs, which is a lot higher up than I expected going into the season."

A few Jumbo runners broke away from the rest of the team to instead compete at the Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton on Friday. The meet featured the best runners from all divisions in the Northeast. Tufts sent five runners to the meet, all of whom posted excellent times.

Sophomores Mitchell Black and Veer Bhalla ran the 800-meter in a very fast and deep field of just under 75 runners. Black finished in 15th place with a time of 1:50.89. It wasn't Black's fastest 800, but it was good enough to qualify him for the NCAA Championship meet, and stands as the fastest 800 time recorded by a Div. III runner this season. Bhalla placed 24th with a time of 1:52.64, which puts him as the eighth-best 800-meter runner in Div. III this season.

Tufts' distance runners had three very strong races in three separate events. Senior tri-captain Ben Wallis joined Black in qualifying for the NCAA Championship meet, placing 16th in the 3000-meter steeplechase with a time of 9:01.46. The time is Wallis' career best, and currently ranks third in Div. III.

Senior tri-captain Jamie Norton recorded a time of 3:50.59 in the 1,500-meter, breaking the school record that has stood since 2009. Norton's performance won 26th place at the meet, and ranks seventh in Div. III this season.

Rounding out the day, senior Andrew Shapero competed in the 5,000-meter, finishing 46th with a time of 14:46.77. This performance is a career best by more than 12 seconds for Shapero, and ranks him in the top-40 runners in Div. III this season.

The Jumbos also had a few athletes compete at home, as Ellis Oval played host to the Tufts Last Second Decathlon on Thursday and Friday. With only nine athletes from the region competing, junior Allan Yau led the Tufts squad with a second-place finish. He accrued 5,177 points during the two days, finishing 915 points out of first place. Yau was remarkably consistent, finishing second despite placing better than third in only two of the 10 events. He won the pole vault with a jump of 10' 10" and placed second in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 16.81. He placed either third or fourth in five other events, solidifying his spot near the top of the leaderboard.

Yau was backed by sophomore Alex Karys and freshman Dan Camilletti, who finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Karys scored 5,140 points, and Camilletti earned 4,758.

The decathletes, as well as the runners that competed in the Larry Ellis Invitational, will rejoin the rest of the Tufts squad on Saturday for the NESCAC Championships at Colby.

For freshmen like Usoff, this will be their first experiences in a high-pressure, high-stakes collegiate meet.

"I think the biggest setback that I have to overcome as a freshman is that I have no real championship meet experience," Usoff said. "In all of the meets leading up to NESCACs, the team score hasn't really mattered, and I haven't been in a meet where my individual performance affects the outcome of the team. I haven't had to deal with this added pressure that my non-freshmen teammates certainly have, so I guess mentally I really don't know what to expect."

Luckily for the Jumbos, there are plenty of athletes on the squad with experience performing well in big meets. Tufts is the defending NESCAC champion and has a real chance to repeat this season. 12