The men's track team was in Boston Sunday to compete in the USA Track and Field New England Championships. The individual meet was its last preparation for the season-ending Heptagonal Championships this weekend.
"This meet (was) ... just a tune up for Heps and a last chance to get in competition experience," said Director of Track and Field Craig Lake. "A lot of the runners raced under-distance."
Despite the laid-back feel of the meet, the Bears got right to business in the 60-meter dash as Paul Raymond '08 blazed to a third-place finish with a time of 7.03. Sean O'Brien '09 ran to a fourth-place finish in the 400-meter dash with a time of 49.83.
The mile-run showed off the squad's depth, as four Bears finished in the top six of the event. Ozzie Myers '08, Brian Schmidt '09, Christian Escareno '10 and Duriel Hardy '10 raced to second-, third-, fifth- and sixth-place finishes respectively to make it one of the strongest outings of the day on the track. Myers, Schmidt and Hardy all had personal bests.
In the 800-meter run, John Loeser '10 and Hardy notched a fourth- and sixth-place finish with times of 1:57.14 and 1:57.92, respectively. Matt Jasmin '09 rounded out the track competition with a fifth place finish in the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.38.
In the field, the Bears came out in full force in the long jump, stacking the event with talent en route to placing five athletes in the top six. Deshaun Mars '08 led the way with a gold-medal performance, leaping a distance of 6.69-meters. He was followed by Stephen Bernardi '07 in second, Nkosi Still '08 in third, Reginald Cole '10 in fourth and Miles Craigwell '09 in sixth. The difference between first and sixth was a mere 0.36 meters.
"I haven't been jumping well this season, so I went into the meet trying to fix a couple of things in my approach and jumps and go out there and compete hard," Mars said. "This meet just gave me a shot of confidence going into Heps. We just have to take this momentum into next week."
In the triple jump, Cole and Craigwell came back again to score fourth and fifth with leaps of 14.34 meters and 14.09 meters, respectively.
Brian Powlen '10 rounded out the day on a strong note, closing the meet with a first-place finish in the shot put with a personal best 16.05 meter throw. The throw was the fifth-longest in the Ivy League this season.
"I am not surprised to see a lot of big performances occurring now," Lake said. "We have a fantastic coaching staff, and we posted a ton of personal bests last year at the Indoor Ivy League championships. We had a lot of throwers, jumpers, sprinters and distance kids have huge breakthroughs at this time of year."
