Teams: Men's Track & Field: Schedule & Results

JONES EARNS TWO NCAA RUNNER-UP FINISHES IN LONG AND TRIPLE JUMPS

COLLEGE MEN'S INDOOR TRACK & FIELD RESULTS
NCAA Division III Championships
Friday-Saturday, March 9-10, 2007
At Terre Haute, IN

Final Results

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- Tufts University senior tri-captain Fred Jones (Northfield, MA) finished second in both the long jump and the triple jump at the 2007 NCAA Division III Indoor Track & Field Championships hosted by Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology on Friday and Saturday.

The two runner-up performances at the NCAA meet, both new school records, give Jones nine All-American honors for his career (indoors and outdoors). It marks the second time in his career that he brought double All-American honors from the same meet back to Tufts, including the 2005 NCAA Outdoor Championships when he was second in the triple and seventh in the long jump.

Jones was making his seventh consecutive appearance at the NCAA Track & Field Championships (four indoors, three outdoors). On Friday in the long jump, he qualified for the final with the best jump of the preliminary round, a school-record 23 feet, 11 3/4 inches. That surpassed his own Tufts record of 23' 9" set at the 2005 Nationals. He then matched the 23' 11 3/4" mark on his second of six jumps in the finals, but was beaten on the last jump by Heidelberg College junior Greg Tyson with a 24' 3" leap.

On Saturday, Jones broke his own school record in the triple jump with a distance of 48' 8 1/4" inches for second place. Fisk University freshman Kamar James won the title with a 48' 10" leap. Jones' jump was his best indoors since he originally broke the indoor school record with a 48' 1/2" effort as a freshman at the Open New England Championships in 2004. On Saturday, he had finished fourth in the preliminary round (47' 6 1/2"), but came up big on his fifth of six jumps in the final.

Jones single-handedly scored 16 points for Tufts to finish in a tie for seventh place overall with Wisconsin-Whitewater and Pomona-Pitzer. It is the highest finish by a New England team at the NCAA meet. Lincoln University won the 2007 title with 59 points.

This year's triple jump finish was the best of his career at Nationals. At the last two NCAA indoor championships, he had qualified to compete in the triple jump, but did not make the final at the meets. As a freshman in 2004, Jones was sixth in the triple at the NCAA indoor meet with a 47' 4 1/2" leap. Last spring, Jones won the NCAA outdoor triple jump national title with a 49' 7" school record.

In the long jump indoors, he was fourth at the NCAA's with 23' 6 1/4" distance last season, and he was also the runner-up at the 2005 indoor nationals with the previous Jumbo record of 23' 9".

A remarkable talent who will graduate in May, Jones performed his best when it mattered most this weekend. He had entered the national meet seeded fourth for the long jump (23' 8 1/4") and ninth in the triple jump (47' 3 3/4").

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