Men's track breaks 79-year-old Bates relay record
May 9, 2009

(From left to right) Peter Corcoran '12, Troy Calandra '12, Mike Watson '09 and C.J. Murray '09 broke the 79-year-old Bates record in the 4x800 relay race. (Photo by Tom Leonard '78)

Calandra

Watson

Murray

Corcoran

Bousquet

McNeil
AMHERST, Mass. -- Since 1930, the same time has stood as the all-time top performance in the 4x800-meter relay in Bates College men's track history: 7:52.94.

That ended on Saturday at UMass-Amherst at the all-divisions Open New England Championships, where a quartet of Bobcats young enough to be great-great-grandsons of the 1930 group -- Norman Cole '32, Wallace Viles '31, Jeffrey Lind '30 and Osie Chapman '31 -- shattered that mark with a time of 7:44.08. First-year Troy Calandra (San Francisco, Calif.) led off with a split of 1:58.2, followed by senior Mike Watson (Mansfield, Mass.) in 1:56.1, senior C.J. Murray (North Andover, Mass.) in 1:56.0, and first-year Peter Corcoran (Stillwater, Minn.) in 1:53.5. Bates finished sixth in the event, 0.57 seconds behind fifth-place Boston College and 0.27 seconds ahead of Vermont. Team members who graduate holding a Bates record earn a coveted Osie Chapman Award, endowed by Osie '31 himself.

Bates scored a total of nine points at the meet, good for 27th place out of 41 scoring teams.

Other second-day highlights at the meet included first-year Candido Bousquet (Colombo, Sri Lanka), who continued his impressive first season by finishing fifth in the discus throw, with a top throw of 151-04.

Sophomore Devin Dilts (Roscoe, Ill.) finished 11th in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, with a time of 9:37.15.

Junior Rich McNeil (Lawrence, Mass.) placed 13th in the shot put (46-01.50) and 20th in the discus throw (124-11).

The Bobcats will compete at the ECAC Division III Championships next weekend at Springfield College.

Friday Recap

The Bates College men's track and field team scored two points on the first day of the all-divisions Open New England Track & Field Championships Friday at UMass-Amherst.

Rich McNeil scored the Bobcats' first-day points, finishing seventh in the hammer throw with a top effort of 173-06, well ahead of the next competitor, Justin Nicoll of the University of Rhode Island (170-06).

Senior Jerome Bennett (Chicago, Ill.) also had a top-10 performance, coming in 10th in the pole vault (14-03.25). First-year Sam Goldstein (Memphis, Tenn.) was 13th with the same top height.

MEET RESULTS