Teams: Men's Track & Field: Press Releases

Monday, May 21, 2007

FIVE JUMBOS TO COMPETE IN SIX EVENTS AT NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS

MEDFORD -- Five members of the Tufts University men's outdoor track & field team will travel to the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh this week for the 2007 NCAA Championships.

Senior tri-captain Fred Jones (Northfield, MA/Northfield Mt. Hermon) will defend his NCAA championship in the triple jump and also compete in the long jump. He enters the meet ranked eighth in the triple jump with a season's best mark of 48 feet, 1/2 inch set at the MIT Spring Invitational on April 21. He was the last of 18 entrants to make the long jump field, with a distance of 23' 4 1/2" at the New England Div. III Championships on May 4. The NCAA long jump will be contested on Thursday (May 24) starting at 3:45 pm CST. The triple jump is scheduled for Saturday (May 26) at noon. Jones won the triple jump event last spring with a mark of 49' 7" at the NCAA meet in Illinois.

Head coach Ethan Barron's Jumbos have two athletes entered in the high jump. Both junior Jeremy Arak (Ipswich, MA/Ipswich) and sophomore James Bradley (Atkinson, NH/Timberlane) got in by clearing 6 feet, 7 1/2 inches at the MIT "Last Chance" Qualifier on Friday (May 18). They will be in action at the NCAA's on Friday (May 25) at 6:00 pm. Also on Friday, Jumbo junior Dave Sorensen (Dover, MA/Dover-Sherborn) will run in the 3,000-meter steeplechase final. He posted a few national-qualifying times during the season, but the 9:09.50 that he ran in the rain at the MIT "Last Chance" Qualifier on Friday is his season's best and the eighth-best in the nation entering the NCAA meet.

Sophomore Fielding "Skip" Pagel (Mystic, CT/Fitch) qualified for the Decathlon, which begins on Thursday. He scored 6,448 points at the All-New England Championships on May 10-11 for his national-qualifying mark. He is the first Jumbo to compete in the NCAA Decathlon since school record holder Pat Dinino in the early 1990s.

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