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Young Tigers shine for men's track at NJ Invite

College track is a team sport, but at its most basic level track is a contest between individuals.

Sunday, the men's track team hosted nine schools in Jadwin Gymnasium for the New Jersey Invitational in a meet that was a return to that individual level of competition. Unlike most collegiate meets, no team scores were recorded – only individual marks were kept.

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Princeton athletes competed against competition from The College of New Jersey, Farmingdale, Kutztown, Mon-mouth, William Patterson, Rider, Rowan, St. John's and St. Peter's.

However, many of the Princeton athletes were not present at Jadwin Sunday, but were instead competing at the Terrier Classic in Boston. Because of this, many of the events did not have Princeton runners, but it did not stop the field events from recording strong finishes.

Young gun

One of the most impressive Princeton showings came from freshman Tora Harris, who blew away the competition with his performance in the high jump. Harris jumped to a mark of six-feet, 11-inches, six inches higher than the second-place finisher, Daniel Mullen from The College of New Jersey.

Another fine performance for the Tigers in the field events came from sophomore Patrick McGinley, who won the triple jump leaping 44-0. His jump was was more than two feet further than his closest competitor, Montclair's Aaron Johnson. McGinley also placed second in the long jump with a leap of 22-3.

The Princeton men claimed four out of the top five spots in the pentathlon. Senior Amos Warren won the event with a score of 3747 points. Junior Jason Melton finished third at 3487 and seniors David Genetti and Nik Vedejs rounded out the top five.

The men did well on the track also, considering that many of their runners were not present. Freshman Ed Tufaro finished first in the 3000-meter run in a time of nine minutes, 10.28 seconds.

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Junior Adrian Murray had a good showing in the 55-meter hurdles with a time of 7.81 seconds that earned second-place.

Runner shines

While the jumpers shined in Princeton, it was sophomore runner Chris Banks who turned in the best performance for the Tigers in the Terrier Classic, which hosted many of the northeast's top track-and-field athletes.

Banks finished third in the 5,000 meter at the meet in 14:20.41. The Tigers only other top-four finish came in the 4x800 relay.

The success of Princeton athletes at both the Princeton Invitational and the Terrier Classic bodes well for the Tigers in the future.

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If Princeton was able to succeed this weekend with its team split up on different parts of the east coast, it certainly should be able to achieve far greater things when the whole team is back together for the remainder of the season.