Jumbos struggle against stiff competition at New England Championships

Tufts men's track and field came away from the New England Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association (NEICAAA) meet this weekend in 35th place out of 36 competing teams from Div. I, II and III programs. This meet, which serves as the championships for New England indoor and outdoor teams, sits as an outlier in the Jumbos' successful season.

Many of the athletes' times have already qualified for nationals, and plenty of Jumbos have set school and personal records so far this season.Rookie head coach Joel Williams brought a new, refreshing attitude to the team that has cultivated a winning culture. The success that the Jumbos experienced, however, came predominantly against fellow Div. III opponents, but this past weekend the team struggled against some of the top Div. I teams in the country. As championship season gets into full swing, the Jumbos will continue to test their team and individual strengths against the region and the country's best athletes.

Tufts scored a total of three points as a team, falling behind every team besides Worcester State, which finished with two points. Contributing to a rough Saturday for the Jumbos was an unfortunate error in the 4 x 400 meter relay. The relay team consisted of sophomore Drew DiMaiti,  first-year Nico Agosti,  junior Nick Usoff and senior tri-captain Mitchell Black. According to DiMaiti, the team was right in the race until he collided with another racer which caused him to drop the baton.

"We were right where we wanted to be when I was about to hand off the baton," DiMaiti said. "A member of the MIT team was running in the lane beside us, and he passed it off first and suddenly stepped in front of me. I had my hand out, about to hand out the baton, so the baton fell into the infield. So Nico Agosti had to go into the infield to grab the baton and by that time four seconds had already passed. The guys ran hard though, even though we were out of the race at that point."

The team still recorded a 3:20.86 time that came very close to beating its collective season best of 3:20.81, though they finished 14th out of 25 teams in the race and did not score any points.

There were, however, a couple of individual performances that scored for the team. Senior Veer Bhalla placed seventh in the 800-meter, scoring two points for Tufts. Junior distance runner Tim Nichols placed eighth in the 3,000-meter race, scoring one point. Those two races comprised the three total team points for the Jumbos. Nichols, though, remarked that there were plenty of promising performances by some of his teammates.

"There were some pretty positive performances," Nichols said. "One of our [first-years], Christian Swenson, broke the [first-year] 3K record. Other than the 4x400 being kind of a disappointment, nothing really bad happened. It was really just because we were facing a lot of Div. I teams that day that put us so far back in the team standings."

Though the team did not score any points to open the weekend-long meet on Friday, Tufts had a few impressive non-scoring efforts, particularly from some of the team's underclassmen. First-year Anthony Kardonsky ran Tufts' fastest time of the season in the 200 meters at 22.32 seconds, good for 19th in the race. Classmate Hiroto Watanabe finished 13th in the 1,000 meter race with a time of 2:30.69, followed by sophomore Sam Little, who finished 18th in 2:32.28.

The disappointing results from this past weekend do not diminish the team's impressive third-place finish the previous weekend Feb. 20 at the New England Div. III Indoor Championships. Seniors Veer Bhalla and tri-captain Mitchell Black headlined that meet with a win each to help Tufts tally 74 points on the day and beat out all Div. III teams in the region besides MIT and Williams, who finished first and second, respectively. 

Bhalla won the 600-meter for the third straight year, breaking Black's year-old school record in the event with a 1:20.10 time, while Black won the 800-meter for the second time in his career with a 1:52.00 time. The dynamic duo now have eight New England Div. III indoor titles between them.

The 4x400 meter relay team -- the same as this past weekend except with senior tri-captain Alex Kasemir instead of Black -- was just 0.18 seconds behind host and winners MIT. Senior Bryson Hoover-Hankerson and sophomore Peter Clark duked it out through the preliminaries and finals for the Tufts 60-meter dash record, with both beating Hoover-Hankerson's school record of 7.14 seconds. In the finals, Hoover-Hankerson ended up finishing fifth in 7.07 seconds, while Clark finished eighth in 7.14, though his 7.09-second time in the prelims had briefly been the school record.

The NED3 meet also saw first-year phenom Josh Etkind continue to impress as he notched himself an 8.25-second 60-meter hurdles time, good for the school record and third at the meet, while it is also the 14th-fastest time nationally. 

Though last weekend was certainly a hiccup in the team's season, the Jumbos know they already have previous successes like the NED3 meet under their belts as they look forward to the rest of the championship season and hope to get back on track after a meet that did not go their way. They will have the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Championships this Friday and Saturday, the Intercollegiate Association of Amateur Athletes of America (IC4A) Championships at Boston University on Saturday and Sunday and the NCAA Championships in Grinnell, Iowa on March 11 and 12.

Coach Williams has also steadfastly believed all season that high team morale is a big factor in the Jumbos' success.

"[The team has] to continue to rally for each other," Williams told the Daily in a Jan. 24 email. "Circling the track to cheer, lining up along the jumps runways and throwing circles to make sure our teammates know we are there for each other. Each guy, from the national level guys to the guys learning how to be a jumper, each one needs to know that every teammate has their back and vice versa."

The Jumbos have done this all season -- they've pumped up their teammates and cheered them on to incredible performances. They have the talent and the motivation to score big in championship meets, and they will surely be looking to take advantage of those strengths in the remaining competitions going forward.