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| Andrew DiMaiti was third in the 400 hurdles and led off the fourth-place 4x4 |
NEW HAVEN, CT - The Tufts men's outdoor track & field team had a strong Saturday at the 2016 New England Intercollegiate Athletic Association Championships on Saturday at Southern Connecticut State University. The Jumbos scored 39 team points on the day and finished sixth overall.
The meet features New England Division I, II, and III teams. The Jumbos were second in DIII, behind only MIT who placed fourth overall.
Tufts sophomore Andrew DiMaiti burned a time of 53.01 seconds in the 400-meter hurdles to place third. He had timed 53.57 in the preliminaries on Friday, then dropped more than a half-second in the final. The 53.01 ranks DiMaiti 11th nationally as of early Saturday eveninng. The Jumbos scored 10 points in the event as junior Nick Usoff posted a mark of 53.83 seconds for fifth place and the #27 time in the country.
Junior Luke O'Connor was the runner-up and top DIII finisher in the 3,000-meter steeplechase with a 9:10.09 time. His season-best mark is ranked 16th nationally. Tufts was the only school with two scorers in the event as senior Nick Adams had a 9:28.74 finish for sixth. The pair combined to tally 11 team points.
Mitchell Black was also a runner-up in the 800 meters. His 1:49.20 time was not a season-best, but it was the top DIII mark at the meet and was just 0.13 behind race winner Paul Duffey from DI Northeastern. Jumbo Veer Bhalla was ninth in the race (1:51.84).
The Jumbos also had a pair of relays finish fourth. The 4x100 group of Peter Clark, Bryson Hoover-Hankerson, Thomas Miller, and Anthony Kardonsky was best among the DIIIs with a 41.65 mark. That's #25 nationally. In the 4x4, DiMaiti, Usoff, Black, and Alex Kasemir combined on a 3:16.88 that was also a Tufts season-best and is #24 in the country.
Senior Atticus Swett was just outside of a top 10 performance in the discus throw with 142'5" (43.42m) distance. The mark is Tufts' best for the outdoor season.
With the season winding down, Tufts has next weekend's ECAC Championships at Westfield State as its last chance to improve upon and set NCAA qualifying marks. The NCAA meet is May 26-28 in Wartburg, Iowa.
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