WESTFIELD - Senior Veer Bhalla improved his national qualifying time in the 800 meters to highlight the Tufts men's outdoor track & field team's effort on the second day of the ECAC Championship meet Thursday.
Bhalla's 1:50.69 time was third in the 20-man race, just 0.30 behind race winner Jeremy Hernandez from Ramapo. The time ranks Bhalla #11 in the nation as of Thursday night, moving up from his 1:51.71 previous season-best at the NESCAC meet. The third-place finish was Tufts' highest of the day.
Tufts scored in four events overall on Thursday, totaling 16 points. Adding to the 21 points scored by the Jumobs on Wednesday, Tufts finished seventh at the meet with a 37 score. Rowan with a 90.5 score won the ECAC Division III men's championship at the meet hosted by Westfield State University.
The Jumbo 4x100-meter relay of Peter Clark, Bryson Hoover-Hankerson, Thomas Miller, and Anthony Kardonsky ran fourth out of 31 foursomes in the meet with a time of 41.92 seconds. They were second behind third-place MIT among New England entries. The time scored five team points, but did not improve Tufts' 41.65 qualifying mark in the event.
Nick Usoff scored in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 53.96 seconds for fifth place. Though he tallied four points for the team, he also did not lower his qualifying mark (53.83).
Hoover-Hankerson added a point with an eighth-place leap in the long jump. His best distance for the day was 21'10 1/4" (6.66m).
Senior James Traester was entered in the 1,500 meters Thursday and took 12th (3:57.53). In the 400, sophomore Andrew DiMaiti was 15th in 49.38 and freshman Nico Agosti placed 29th in 50.17 seconds. Clark ran the 200 meters in 22.54 seconds for 20th.
The NCAA Outdoor Championships which will crown the 2015-16 track & field season are next week (May 26-28) in Waverly, Iowa. As of Thursday night, Mitchell Black and Bhalla in the 800, Tim Nichols in the 10K, DiMaiti in the 400-meter hurdles, and Luke O'Connor in the 3,000-meter steeplechase appear to have qualified for the Jumbos.
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