Nichols, Etkind set records as Tufts competes at Bates, Princeton

In a busy weekend for Tufts, the team claimed third in the four-team Bates Invitational on Saturday after senior Tim Nichols broke the Tufts’ 10,000-meter record at Princeton’s Sam Howell Invitational on Friday.

While the overall finish was not an impressive one for the Jumbos, they were buoyed by strong performances in a few events. Sophomore Josh Etkind broke a record that had been standing for 15 years in the 110-meter hurdles. His time of 14.46 seconds was just five-hundredths of a second faster than the previous pace set by Greg Devine (GE ’03).

Etkind’s time currently ranks third in the nation and comes on the heels of his appearance at the indoor championships in March.

"[It was] pretty cold and windy. I guess that's how I'd sum it up, which meant some good things actually," senior tri-captain Nick Usoff said. "Josh [Etkind] ran really well, and that was the highlight of the day. A time like that will almost definitely get him into nationals."

Etkind wasn’t the only Tufts athlete to claim a first-place finish for the Jumbos. First-year Robert Jones won the 100-meter with a time of 10.85 seconds, and juniors Stephan Duvivier and Shant Mahrokhian claimed firsts in the high and long jumps respectively.

Senior tri-captain Nick Usoff continued his dominant spring performances with wins in the 200-meter (22.04) and 400-meter (50.26) runs.

Tufts’ 4x100-meter relay team -- consisting of Jones, junior Peter Clark and sophomores Anthony Kardonsky and Brett Levenstein -- also took first place in their event with a time of 43.10 seconds.

Nichols continued his record-shattering senior campaign on Friday by setting a new benchmark in the 10,000-meter, breaking the 30-minute mark for the first time in Tufts history. His 29:37.09 time was nearly 30 seconds faster than the previous record from 2005.

Nichols and classmate tri-captain Luke O'Connor made the drive to Princeton on Thursday in advance of the meet in the hopes that they would be pushed by the more competitive field that included athletes from Div. I.

"We go to this meet because it's a little bit more competitive, which is good for running faster times," Nichols said. "I ran my season-opener 10k; it was a pretty big [personal record] by like 40 seconds. It broke the school record by almost 30 seconds, which was super exciting. It's really motivating to see that I'm still improving."

O'Connor also placed at the invitational, finishing with a time of 14:48.55 in the 5,000-meter, good for a sixth-place finish out of 59 competitors. His time currently ranks 13th in Div. III.

Nichols' time was good enough for first, both in the event and nationally, where he holds a 23-second lead on Williams senior Peter Hale’s second-place time.

Nichols explained that he is excited by the strong early showings from the team, especially coming off an indoor season that saw Tufts win the Div. III New England Championships.

"There's no NESCAC competition for indoors," Nichols said. "Outdoors, we generally focus on NESCACs as the primary team meet and team goal. We definitely want to win NESCACs this year. We've had so many outstanding performances; not that it's going to be a breeze, but we definitely have a leg up on the rest of the teams that'll be competing."

Tufts is next in action on Friday at Conn. College’s Silfen Invitational before hosting the Sunshine Classic Saturday.

"[Being at home] is something else," Usoff said. "You get to go in knowing all the facilities, the track, and you get people who aren't runners there cheering for you. Just knowing the track and knowing where everything is makes the whole experience a little cooler."