Season Outlook
The Haverford men’s track team added two more titles with wins in both the indoor and outdoor Centennial Conference championships in 2007. Combined with cross country, the track & field program has won 47 out of a 48 possible conference titles since 1991.
The 2007 season was highlighted by Don Letts’ distance double at the outdoor NCAA Championships, making All-American in both the 10,000- and 5,000-meter runs. Letts achieved All-American status four times during his junior year, including high national finishes in the indoor 5,000 meters and cross country. Letts was joined as an All- American outdoors by 2007 graduate and co-captain Zach Vaslow in the 10,000 meters and rising senior Ian Ramsey-North in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Recent grad Carson Pickens set indoor and outdoor high jump records and just missed All-America status at the NCAAs while Joe Awantang ’08 finished 15th in his first NCAA appearance.
Awantang leads the returning field performers. He is defending Centennial indoor shot put champion, along with being the conference’s outdoor champion in both the shot and discuss the past two years. Awantang holds both the indoor and outdoor Haverford records in the shot put. Other top shot and discuss men are seniors Elvis Rosado and Grant Scribner. Returning vaulters include sophs Phil Kim and Andrew Wei.
The sprinters and 400 men will be led by senior Carlos Coleman and junior Sunil Adige. The middle distance runs have been a traditional strength of the team, with the top six 1,500 runners over the past 20 years averaging 3:43 – the equivalent of 4:01 in the Mile. Sophomores Ben Frisbee and Nick Farina, along with juniors Jason Oaks, Paul Bisceglio and Dan O’Toole, will highlight this group.
Steeplechase has been another Haverford specialty, and 2008 should prove no exception with an experienced returning group, led by conference champion and All-America senior Ian Ramsey-North. Seniors Tim Miles and Ben Marsden, junior Patrick Donnelly and sophomore Reilly Costigan-Humes add further strength in barrier racing.
Four-time All-American and multiple-Centennial champion Don Letts leads a strong distance corps that featured five NCAA automatic or provisional qualifiers in the 10,000 meters last season (times ranging from 30:11 to 31:02). Four of those five return, led by Letts, Ramsey-North, senior Jamie Jablin and junior Taylor Burmeister. Seniors Michael Jablin and Danny Guilfoyle, juniors Mark Burgmann and Ben Walker, and soph Andrew Lanham will all contribute to overall depth in the longest running events.
Additional strength in all areas is expected to come from the traditional growth of younger team members, plus the addition of a promising freshman class.