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Jeff Marvel earned his second All-American honor at the NCAA Championships on Friday
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NAPERVILLE, IL - The Tufts men's indoor track & field team's distance medley relay was less than seven-tenths of a second away from winning the national title as they placed second in the event on the opening day of the NCAA Div. III Championship meet at North Central College on Friday.
The Tufts foursome of senior tri-captain Jeff Marvel (Naples, FL), junior Graham Beutler (Weston, CT), freshman Mitch Black (Brunswick, ME), and junior Jamie Norton (Groton, MA) ran a 10:00.23 time that was behind only Wisconsin-LaCrosse's 9:59.58 time that won the race. The Jumbos came into the meet as the third seed and earned the best Tufts finish at the NCAA indoor meet since Dan Marcy was the runner up in the 2008 triple jump.
Marvel and Beutler earned All-American honors for the second time, while Black and Norton are first-timers. It marked the second straight year that Tufts earned a top-eight finish in the DMR, including last year's eighth-place relay that included Beutler. The eight points scored by the second-place DMR on Friday has Tufts in a tie for sixth place in the team scoring after one day.
Also in action for the Jumbos on Friday were seniors Michael Blair (Wellesley, MA) in the heptathlon and Curtis Yancy (St. Louis, MO) in the weigh throw. Blair sits eighth after four events with 2,689 points. He scored best in the high jump with 740 points for his 6'4" (1.93m) clearance. The final three events will be competed on Saturday. Yancy placed 12th in Friday's weight throw, launching a best-distance of 51'6 1/2" (15.7m).
In addition to Blair finishing the heptathlon on Saturday, senior Gbola Ajayi (Lagos, Nigeria) will be in action in the triple jump.
Results
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