BY NYIKA CORBETT

In print | Published April 3, 2008

This past weekend, the Swarthmore men’s track team used its outdoor season opener to post many Centennial Conference qualifying marks.

The Danny Curran Invite, hosted by nearby Widener University, is named in memory of a Widener Athlete who died while hiking in Oregon. While the meet began as a small invite, this past weekend there were over 30 schools represented. As Jaymes Fairfax-Columbo ‘10 described Saturday’s events, “Overall, I thought the team did very well. It was a cold, windy day, but the team still scorched the track.”

The fire on the track began with senior Mickey Katz’s 5k race on Friday. His time of 16:14 earned Katz a 16th place finish, as well as a spot in the Centennial Conference Championships. Katz’s smashing performance on Saturday was followed by some impressive efforts from the discus ring.

While Swat throwers Nick Willet-Jeffries ’10 and Neel Prakash ’09 both threw respectable distances of over 25m, throws coach Tom Reynolds, who competed unattached, blew all of the competition away with a whopping throw of 49.7m. Throughout the course of the track meet Reynolds went on to place in the top ten in each of the subsequent throwing events: shot put, javelin and hammer throw.

Prakash and Willet-Jeffries competed in all of these events with the exception of the hammer throw. According to Coach Reynolds, the event at which Prakash most excelled this weekend was one in which he was competing for the first time this year: the javelin. The explanation of Prakash’s aptitude to this specific event is most likely attributable to his lack of girth, when compared to the general shot putting population.

Tramane Hall ’11 made his debut on the track and was a welcome addition to the sprints portion of the track team. Both Hall and Yongjun Heo ’09 posted Conference qualifying marks in the 100m dash. Heo also doubled back in the 200 later Saturday afternoon.

Chris Mayer-Bacon ’11 executed his preferred race, the 400 hurdles, in style to add to the list of Conference qualifiers.

A substantial portion of the distance men used Saturday to tune their mid-distance skills by racing the 1500. Junior Connor Darby’s 4:16 qualifier was followed by robust performances by Jon Shoop ’08, Katz, Andrew VanBuren ’10, Dave Riccardi ’10 and Alex Breslow ’11. While not completely satisfied with his performance, Shoop said, “I passed a lot of people at the end … like 7 in the last 100 meters.”

According to Ross Weller ‘08, many of the guys echoed Shoop’s sentiment about going out too comfortably in the beginning of the 1500. “From what the guys tell me, they all had a lot left in the tank at the end of the race. So we should see some faster times soon,” Weller said.

Dan Kurz ’11, VanBuren and Seth Green ’10 all ran speedy 800s. When asked about his performance and how he managed to race such a beautiful 800 following his performance in the 1500 earlier that day, VanBuren said, “I had the image of Pete in my head to keep me motivated the whole time.” What inspiration to kick it into gear!

Jonnie Tompkins ‘10 summed up the past weekend’s performances with a heartfelt statement, “I feel like the team is on the road to success.”

Disclosure note: Jaymes Fairfax-Columbo is a contributor to The Phoenix but had no role in the production of this article.

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