Field event prowess paces home win over Midshipmen

After some hard work and preparation over winter break, the men's track and field team started off its indoor season with a 96-85 win over Navy at Jadwin Gym on Sunday.

The Tigers were especially successful in the field events, taking the top two spots — eight of 11 possible points — in four of the six field events.

Junior Alex Pessala and freshman Craig Pearce finished 1-2 in the weight throw event with throws of 61 feet and 59' 5", respectively.

"The competition in the weight-throwing events was actually really good," Pearce said. "Although Alex Pessala and I took first and second, respectively, Navy rebounded to take first and second in the shot-put event to even out the score."

Junior Duane Hynes finished first in the long jump for the Tigers with an impressive leap of 23' 2.5". Senior Nathan Crumpton took second with a jump of almost 22' 10".

"Duane and I have been pushing each other all year long, and even though we both compete in other events, it's nice to have a teammate to push you further," Crumpton said. "We both had some technical flaws in our jumps, but it's still early in the season and both of us should improve."

The Tigers were successful at the pole vault as well. Sophomore Chad Faulkner and senior Will Byrd both cleared the 14' 9" mark to tie for first. In the triple jump, freshman Garner McCloud had a big win over Navy's second-place finisher Dante Marshall with an impressive jump of 47' 3.75".

The high jump was yet another field event in which the Tigers placed a pair of competitors ahead of the field. Sophomore Justin Frick came in first, clearing the bar at 6' 10.25", while classmate Ian Fox was right behind at 6' 8.25".

"The high jump competition was a pretty fun event," Fox said. "It was basically Justin and me, and he's usually pretty good competition."

Princeton won both middle-distance races against Navy. Senior Kurt Kuehne just edged out Navy's Craig Meekins by six hundreths of a second in the 800-meter run, and sophomore Ben White took the 1000-meter run with a time of two minutes, 31.95 seconds.

"Overall, Navy is a solid team. That definitely applies to their middle-distance crew as well," Kuehne said. "They put one of each of their middle-distance studs into all of the 500-, 800-, and 1000-meter races, so the competition was quite strong."

"The middle-distance competition was great, and Navy really challenged us," White added. "We ran smart and it paid off with two big wins. They weren't going to just give it to us — we had to take it."

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The Tigers also took the top two spots in both the 200- and 60-meter dashes. In the 60, sophomore Andrew Usoro won the race and junior Shafiq Kashmiri was a close second. The results were reversed in the 200, where Kashmiri edged Usoro for first place by three hundredths of a second.

"Navy is always a really strong team, so this was a big win for us," Hynes said. "Also, it is a good indicator of where we are early in the season, so we can all work to improve as the season progresses."

The meet against Navy was only the beginning for the Tigers. Princeton will travel to Penn State for a meet this Saturday, where the team hopes to continue its success.

"The meet at Penn State is going to be our first real test of the year in high jump," Frick said. "Cornell, our biggest Ivy rival, is supposed to be there, and Penn State's high jumper Ryan Fritz was an All-American last year indoors and is a great jumper. I really feel like the increase in competition will be the catalyst I need to break into the higher heights."

Hopefully for the Tigers, Frick can help pull the rest of his impressive teammates right up to the top with him.