WILLIAMSTOWN – The Tufts University men's outdoor track & field team finished as the runner-up at the 2019 New England Division III Championships hosted by Williams College Thursday through Saturday. It's the second time in three years that the Jumbos have placed second at the regional meet.
Tufts entered Saturday with 24 team points and added 67.5 more to finish with an 89.5 total. They were behind only New England DIII champion MIT, who had a 139.50 score. The Jumbos were well ahead of third-place Middlebury (64).
On Saturday, Tufts' 4x800-meter relay won the New England D3 title with a 7:47.82 mark. In a 12-team race, Jumbos Colin Raposo, Dylan McEniry, Roman Lovell and Collin O'Sullivan defeated MIT (7:49.48) for the victory.
Tufts also had a runner-up performance by its 4x4 relay as Riley Patten, Sam Oomen-Lochtefeld, OJ Armstrong and Tom Doyle combined on a 3:19.87 that was Tufts' best mark in the event this spring. They were less than eight-tenths of a second behind race-winner Westfield State (3:19.10). The Jumbos scored 22 points in the relays overall as the 4x1 group of Jordan Abate, Armstrong, Brandon Levenstein and Anthony Kardonsky were fifth in 42.37 seconds.
Kevin Quisumbing and Kardonsky had the top individual finishes for Tufts on Saturday. Quisumbing was second in the shot put (50'1 ¾" – 15.28m) and Kardonsky was the runner-up in the 200 with a season-best 21.75. It's a top 40 national time.
Brian Reaney ran his PR in the 5,000 meters with a 15:04.42 time that was fourth at the meet. Patten was also fourth in the 400-meter hurdles (55.68). Fifths came from Kardonsky in the 100 (10.80) and Benji Wallace in the pole vault at 14'7 ½" (4.46m).
Tufts had two scorers in the 3,000-meter steeplechase as both Rory Buckman (9:39.83) and Harry Steinberg (9:42.46) notched PRs and were sixth and seventh, respectively. Doyle was also sixth in the 400 (49.60) and Hiroto Watanabe ran seventh in the 800 with a team season-best 1:54.33 mark.
Though they didn't score, senior Charles Pennington matched his outdoor PR in the high jump clearing 6'4" (1.93m) and freshman Nick Delaney had the team's best 1,500 with a 3:57.75 finish.
Tufts has the New England Intercollegiate Amateur Athletic Association meet at Southern Connecticut next weekend.
