Last weekend, the men’s track and field team traveled to Trinity to compete at the Trinity College Invitational. The unscored meet gave the Mammoths an opportunity to tuneup for next weekend’s NESCAC Championships, which will be hosted by Bowdoin.
The meet kicked off with Aziz Khan ’18 competing in the preliminary round of the 100-meter dash, where he qualified for the eight-person final with a time of 11.39 seconds. In the final, he matched his preliminary round time to place sixth overall.
Both Yonas Shiferaw ’20 and Maxim Doiron ’19 qualified for the 110-meter hurdles final, where the hurdles duo placed fourth and sixth, respectively.
First-year Estevan Velez ran to victory in the 1,500-meter run, finishing the metric mile in 4:04. In the last 200 meters of the race, Velez sprinted by Trinity and Tufts competitors to claim first place. Not far behind him was Jacob Silverman ’19, who ran a time of 4:10 to place fifth.
In the 400-meter dash, juniors David Ingraham and Harrison Haigood ran 52.40 and 53.03 seconds, respectively.
Ermias Kebede ’19 and Alex Mangiafico ’20 followed up last weekend’s strong performances in the 800 meters with strong performances once again, covering the two-lap race in times of 2:00 and 2:06, respectively.
Haigood led Amherst in the 200-meter dash, sprinting to a sixth-place finish with a time of 23.42 seconds. Just behind him was classmate Ingraham, who covered the half-lap in 23.66 seconds.
In the 5,000-meter run, senior Ben Fiedler had a career day, setting a new personal best in the race by five seconds with a time of 15:19. Fiedler placed second to several time All-American Tim Nichols of Tufts. With his excellent run, he also qualified for Division III New England Championships.
Junior Aaron Zambrano had an exceptional day as well, running 15:44 to set a new personal best by 26 seconds.
In the field, Jack Dufton ’19 was the lone Amherst competitor in the high jump, leaping 1.74 meters to place fifth. First-year Jordan Edwards had another standout day in the horizontal jumps, winning the triple jump with a mark of 13.06 meters and placing second in the long jump with a leap of 6.15 meters.
Sam Amaka ’18 placed fourteenth in the shot put with a throw of 11.27 meters and eighth in the hammer throw with a toss of 41.84 meters. Cornell Brooks ’19 was the lone Amherst competitor in the discus, finishing 15th with a throw of 28.95 meters.
“There were some good performances, but I know a lot of us were hoping for better results in our events,” said Ingraham. “We’re going to come out strong for NESCACs next weekend and I’m confident that it’ll be a strong meet for both the sprint and distance squads.”
Next weekend, the Mammoths will travel to Bowdoin for the NESCAC Championships, where Amherst is limited to three entries per event. Amherst will also have three wild card entries that coaches Luke Maher and Selwyn Maxwell can use at their discretion to enter another Amherst competitor in an event.
To compete at the NESCAC Championships, athletes must achieve the meet-qualifying standard, which is the most relaxed of the postseason meets. At NESCACs, athletes will look to score points for the Mammoths and also qualify for the Division III New England Championships and Open New Englands, which will both be hosted by rival Williams.
