STORRS, Conn. - On Saturday, the Yale men's track and field team competed against local and Ivy League competition at the University of Connecticut's Dog Fight. Last year the meet only included colleges that had dogs for their mascots, but this year Ivy league rivals Cornell and Dartmouth joined the party. This year's iteration proved to be a competitive meet and a valuable first outdoor experience for much of the team. 
 
Heavy overnight and morning rain left a sodden track and forced officials to use leaf blowers to clear puddles from the lanes. Fortunately, though, the rain cleared just before the Bulldogs kicked off their day. The 4x100 was the first event where a young team of Kit Colson, Jacob Kao, James Grindle and Andrew Farr competed for the second time this season. Despite cold weather preventing outdoor exchange work during the week, the squad was able to run almost the exact same time as the week prior in Raleigh, this time however under markedly worse conditions.
 
In the first field event of the day, Cristian Pereira and Isiah Udofia competed in the long jump, with Pereira making the final in the event. Both jumpers were back in action after a very brief interim for the 100m dash. Yale had nine athletes competing in the 100m, with Kao running the fastest Yale time of the day (10.81s with a slight headwind). This marked his first time breaking 11 seconds since arriving at Yale and was a substantial collegiate PR. Given this was only his first attempt of the season, expect that PR to whittle down over the next weeks. 
 
Farr was the standout performer in the 200m, with a 21.87-second clocking. This was a lifetime personal best for the first year and is especially promising given that this was his outdoor debut in the event this season. Together with his trademark 400m strength, he will no doubt run some exciting times over both distances. Aaron Miller was only just behind, also breaking the 22-second barrier in the process. And running his first 200m since high school, Colson showed great endurance, doubling his 100m time for the day and running 22.15s.
 
Yale only had one competitor in the 400m, with Chris Brown dropping down from his typical 800m to get in some valuable speed work. In the 1500m Tanish Chettiar and Richard Sturtevant placed within the top 10 overall at the meet, running a close 4:03.71 and 4:03.84 respectively. 
 
In the 3000m, Yale had two athletes competing. Martin Riddell finished a highly respectable fourth place and Owen Karas won the event overall with a 8:36.02 performance, a full four seconds ahead of the next-best performer. 
 
The throwers had a strong showing, finishing late into the evening. Chris Ward placed second overall in the shot put with a performance of 17.34m and Matt Appel was closely behind in fourth with a 16.60m performance. In the hammer throw both Nolan Recker and Jake Sun finished within a meter of each other and within the top 10 performers. Lastly Alex Sundberg was Yale's sole javelin thrower and opened his Yale account with a strong platform to build off over the rest of the season.
 
The last event of the track for the day was the 4x400m, in which the Yale team placed third. A team of Simon Jupp, Kao, Colin Quinn and Jeamy Williams showed their experience with a strong overall performance and consistent legs throughout. Quinn was a particular highlight as he looked as smooth as ever in his first race back after a long period of injury. 

Full results from the meet can be found here. 
 
Overall, Yale's performance was a good place to be in this early season, but the team will be hoping to progress strongly over the coming meets. Next weekend the Bulldogs visit Boston to match up with rivals Harvard against the visiting English duo of Oxford and Cambridge. That historic meet will definitely be one to tune in for.