Men finish second at indoor track championship
02/27/10 – The Haverford men's indoor track & field team closed out the winter season with a second place finish at the conference championship.
HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford College men's indoor track & field team finished second to Dickinson College in the Centennial Conference's championship meet in Alumni Field House Saturday.
The Fords totaled 107.5 points to Dickinson's 129. Muhlenberg was just behind Haverford with 106 points followed by Ursinus with 105.5.
Early on the Fords were looking like they might be in the driver's seat with event champions in back to back events.
Anders Hulleberg captured the 5,000 meter run with a time, 14 minutes, 41.19 seconds, that surpassed the NCAA championship provisional qualifying standard, as did teammate and third place finisher Joseph Carpenter (14:51.91). Andrew Sturner was seventh for the Fords.
In the next event, the Distance Medley Relay, Haverford raced to the Centennial crown behind the legs of Michael Riccio, Ben Siqueiros, Alec Koffer and Chris Southwick.
Not long after those two winning events, the Fords were back on top of, and filling, the podium again. Ivo Milic-Strkalj won the Mile with a time of 4:17.48 and was joined in the top eight (points places) by Tim Schoch in third, Eric Arnold in fifth, and Lucas Fuentes in seventh.
Meanwhile, the pole vault pit was getting worked over by a Haverford trio.
Edward Oh and Philip Kim cleared a height of 3.90 meters (12 feet, 9 1/2 inches) to place third and fourth (Oh finished ahead by virtue of fewer misses), respectively. Andrew Wei added eighth place points for Haverford.
Later, Richard Dowlat raced to a fourth place finish in the 400 followed by Schoch's third, and Milic-Strkalj's fourth in the 800.
Late in the meet the standings were tight between the top four teams with the 3,000 and a pair of relays left to contest.
Haverford's Jordan Schilit posted a second place finish in the 3K with teammates Elias Tousley (seventh) and Alec Koffer (eighth) chipping in. Dickinson, however, put some space between itself and the other three teams with first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth place finishes.
Haverford fought back in the 4x800 as Jacob Olshansky, Reuben Land, Siqueiros and Riccio clocked a winning time of 8:00.62 to draw closer to the Red Devils who finished fourth in the event.
The 4x400 was the final event of the meet and the Fords, Mules and Bears all found themselves too far behind Dickinson, though. Haverford finished third in the event with the quartet of Dowlat, Alex Koffer, Milic-Strkalj and Schoch posting a gutsy time of 3:29.44 into the books.
The Dickinson victory ends a 10-year run of indoor championships for Haverford. Since the formation of the Centennial and first championship meet in 1994, only one other team, Franklin & Marshall in 1999, has held the league trophy at the end of the day.
Ursinus' Travis Youngs was named the meet's Field Performer of the Meet while Dickinson's Nick Karwoski earned the Track honor.