HANOVER, N.H. – The Yale men's track and field team began 2020 in the best possible fashion Saturday, defeating both Columbia and Dartmouth for the first time since 2009. The competition came down to the very last races – the 4x800m and 4x400m relays. If Dartmouth had beaten the Bulldogs in either, the Big Green would have won the meet. The Bulldogs' performance demonstrates enormous improvement from last year, when they finished third, and should inspire confidence as they progress into the season.
Andrew Rochon set the team off in style, finishing third in the weight throw and second in the shot put, securing a valuable six-point haul. On the runway, sophomore Darius Jing had one of the best performances of his short career as a Bulldog, leaping to third in both the long and triple jump. To complete an incredibly successful morning in the field, Spencer O'Neill jumped a new PR of 2.01m (6' 07") to win the high jump. The field event squad of just five athletes scored 15 points for the team, punching well above their weight.
The momentum continued to steadily build in the sprint heats, as Itamar Fayler won his section of the 60m hurdles and six of the eight men who qualified for the 60m dash final repped the Y. The heats were followed by the mile, in which Robert Miranda brought his stellar cross country form onto the track, kicking away in the final lap to win in 4:15.50.
The sprint squad then took center stage. Fayler, in his first meet as a Bulldog, dipped to win the hurdles by mere thousandths of a second, finishing in 8.46. With the barriers removed Phil Zuccaro, clearly driven on by the intense competition from his teammates on either side of him, stormed through the line to win in a new PR of 6.87, with Trenton Charles two-hundredths of a second behind and Vincent Vaughns completing the Yale sweep in 6.94.
Zuccaro had no intention of stopping there. He rocketed to the win in the 200m in 21.90, a stunningly fast time on a flat track like Dartmouth's. Fellow sophomore Juma Sei then stepped up in the 400m and cooly executed a beautiful race, winning in 48.71, more than half-a-second ahead of second place. To complete the long sprints, Alex Whittaker ran the 500m for the first time and finished a strong second in 1:08.41 to build well off his win at the Yale Season Opener.
With the sprints completed, it was the task of the distance and middle-distance squads to keep the ball rolling, as it were. In the 800m, Allen Siegler showed his potential to break the 4-minute mile, finishing second in 1:53.18, with Will Laird just behind in 1:53.54. The heavily stacked 1000m was split into two sections. In the first, Nick Dahl – in typical style – took the lead from the gun and held it up to the bell, at which point he seemed beaten by a devastating kick from a Columbia athlete. He was five meters behind, with 100m to go, when he changed gears, timing his sprint to perfection to win by just seven-hundredths of a second in an impressive time of 2:28.37. In the second heat, Cameron Wyman finished strongly in 2:31.03, just missing out on the scoring places in fifth.
As it was becoming increasingly clear that every point would matter, Patrick Perry and Cade Brown stepped up for the 3000m. Perry, who hasn't raced since September, looked smooth and confident as he took the lead half a mile into the race, stretching – and eventually tearing – the pack behind apart. After doing the majority of the work, he fell victim to a strong kick by the eventual winner, but should take immense confidence from his performance; he clearly displayed the potential to compete with the best in the league.
As the relays began, Dartmouth had 62 points, with Yale in second with 60. Harrison Smith took the 4x800m out, barely keeping Dartmouth and Columbia's middle-distance specialists in touching distance. Siegler then ran another stunning 800m to bring the Bulldogs back into contention, passing the baton onto Miranda, who showed impressive speed to give Dahl the baton in second. Dahl closed hard over the final lap once again, securing the all-important second place, and three points in the process, taking Yale into the overall lead, as the relays are scored 5-3-0 points for 1st-2nd-3rd respectively.
With the pressure on, the 4x400m team, boldly comprising two first-years, took the lead from the bell with a rapid leg by captain Kyle Macauley, extended it with mature sprints from Marcus Woods and Harry Grindle, and allowed Sei to close out both the race and the meet in style. The team won by three points.
For captain Macauley, it was the perfect start to what he hopes will be a great season. He said:
"Every member of the team contributed to the meet win today. We started with great performances and it really set the tone for the day. The team brought great energy for every athlete on the track and it helped us build momentum. When we really needed guys to step-up, they did in a big way.
"This was the first opportunity to display the depth of our squad in its entirety and I'm sure our performance turned some heads in the league. It's a great way to start the season but we aren't done yet. This is one of the most talented teams Yale has had in recent history. Our performance today proved we can compete at a very high level and we are looking to build off our successes. While this is a great start to the season, it is insignificant if we don't continue to improve and and get it done at Heps. We will certainly use this as motivation to get even better and grab more wins in the future. The sky is the limit for this team, we just need to keep working."
