Men’s track and field second at Snowflake Classic
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McNeil |
Bousquet |
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Bennett |
Quinn |
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Epler |
Esponnette |
MEDFORD, Mass. — The Bates College men’s track and field team had a strong debut to the outdoor season on Saturday, finishing second out of 13 teams in the Snowflake Classic meet at Tufts University. Bates scored 132.5 points, finishing behind only Rensselaer (141), while Tufts (104.5), Boston University (94) and Southern Maine (88.5) rounded out the top five.
Junior one-time All-American Rich McNeil (Lawrence, Mass.), who missed the entire indoor season with a broken foot, returned to action in impressive fashion, winning the hammer throw (164-10) and taking third place in the discus throw (132-03). Bates scored big points in the throwing events. In the hammer, senior Mark Liu (Lexington, Mass.) placed fourth (141-00), sophomore Christopher Murtagh (Rowley, Mass.) was fifth (139-11) and first-year Candido Bousquet (Colombo, Sri Lanka) was sixth (136-11). Murtagh was also fifth in the javelin throw (166-09) and eighth in the discus (118-04), while Liu was eighth in the shot put (37-05.25).
Bousquet also showed rare versatility in placing second in the long jump (20-10.00).
Other standout performances for Bates included sophomore Ryan Quinn (Watertown, Mass.) placing second in the 100-meter dash (11.19 seconds) and fourth in the 200 (22.70), putting him at No. 6 and No. 10, respectively, on Bates’ all-time performance lists in those events.
Senior Jerome Bennett (Chicago, Ill.) took second in the pole vault at 14-03.00, while first-year Sam Goldstein (Memphis, Tenn.) was third at 13-09.00, putting the two men at No. 4 and No. 8, respectively, on Bates’ all-time outdoor performance list.
Sophomore Brett Epler (Wellesley, Mass.) placed second in the 400-meter hurdles (57.79) and was fifth in the 110 hurdles with a personal-best time of 16.13 seconds, putting him at No. 10 on the all-time Bates list.
Sophomore Tom Esponnette (Auburn, Maine) and junior Doug Brecher (Waban, Mass.) finished the meet for Bates by placing second and fourth, respectively, in the 5,000, scoring valuable points as the Bobcats tried to catch RPI.
Other notable performances included sophomore Devin Dilts (Roscoe, Ill.) coming in third in the 10,000 (33:00.34), the 4×100 relay team of first-year Mike Jiang (Madison, Conn.), sophomore Pat Carroll (North Andover, Mass.), first-year Nick Marinakis (Reading, Mass.) and Quinn coming in second (44.02); and first-year Peter Corcoran (Stillwater, Minn.) coming in sixth in the 1,500 (4:08.38).
“It was a very good first outdoor meet for us, with quite a few great performances,” said head coach Al Fereshetian.
Bates will next compete at the Jim Sheehan Memorial Meet at Fitchburg State next Saturday, April 4.