NEW LONDON, CT - The Tufts men's outdoor track & field team won its third meet of the season at the Silfen Invitational hosted by Connecticut College.
Junior Mitchell Black, the NCAA Indoor 800 champion, doubled in the 400 meters and 1,500 meters to lead the Jumbos. Freshman Andrew DiMaiti earned the other Tufts victory in the 400-meter hurdles.
Though Tufts has yet to post a national top 10 time individually this spring, the team's depth was the story again. Multiple athletes scored in several events, including totaling 26 points in the 400, 18 in the 1,500 and 15 in the 5,000. All told, Tufts' winning score of 188 was 57 higher than second-place Worcester State.
Black ran 49.60 in the 400 and 3:56.82 in the 1,500 for his wins. The 1,500 time ranks 14th nationally. In the 400, he was followed by classmate Veer Bhalla in second (50.46), senior Alex Sheltzer in fourth (50.82) and junior Alex Kasemir in sixth (50.99).
DiMaiti didn't top his season's best time in the 400-meter hurdles, but won in 55.80 seconds.
Sophomore Tim Nichols ran 14:45.58 in the 5,000 to finish as the runner up and move into 15th place nationally. Classmate Nick Usoff was also second in the javelin throw, his 190'0" (57.92m) heave ranking 16th in the country.
The Jumbos also received runner-up finishes from sophomore Luke O'Connor in the 3,000 steeplechase (9:40.03), freshman Stefan Duvivier in the high jump (6'4" / 1.93m) and senior co-captain Brian Williamson in the hammer throw (144'1" / 43.91m).
Tufts reached its easy victory without any entrants in the relays.
Next week marks the last of the regular season with a multi-event at Holy Cross, the Larry Ellis Invitational at Princeton and a team meet at UMass Lowell on Saturday.
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