WESTFIELD - Junior Luke O'Connor of the Tufts University men's outdoor track & field won the 3,000-meter steeplechase on the first day of the ECAC Divison III Championships at Westfield State University Wednesday.
O'Connor's time of 9:04.53 was his season-best and won the race by nearly 13 seconds. It's the #10 ranked mark in the nation as of Wednesday night, improving upon his previous season-best of 9:10.09 from last week's All-New England meet. It's the first ECAC championship won by a Jumbo since Mike Blair was first in the high jump in 2011.
Senior Nick Adams was fourth in the steeplechase with a season-best 9:27.68 time. Together, he and O'Connor scored 15 team points in the event.
Freshman Henry Hintermeister had a tremendous peformance in the javelin, launching the spear 193'0" (58.82m) for third place out of 22 in the meet. It's over 13 feet further than his previous season-best of 179'8" (54.77m). The new distance is ranked 23rd nationally.
With the six points scored by Hintermeister in the javelin, and the 3,000 steeplechase points, Tufts was third as a team after one day at ECAC's with a 21 score. MIT is first with a 31 score and Bates is close behind at 29.
Several other Jumbos were in action on Wednesday, but none scored or improved upon their NCAA qualifying marks. Freshman Josh Etkind narrowly missed qualifying for the 110-meter hurdles final with a preliminary time of 15.01 seconds. The eighth and final qualifying spot went to Franklin & Marshall's Michael Hoffman in 14.99 seconds.
More Jumbos are expected to be in action when the ECAC meet continues tomorrow, including Francis Goins in the 400, Veer Bhalla in the 800, James Traester in the 1,500 meters, Usoff in the 400-meter hurdles, Bryson Hoover-Hankerson in the long jump, Atticus Swett in the shot put, and the 4x100-meter relay.
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