While their teammates raced in New Haven, Conn., Maag and Nightingale took on Seattle. Maag was especially impressive. He nearly broke the four-minute mile mark with a time of four minutes, .43 seconds, finishing an impressive third among collegiate runners in the field. Nightingale ran the 5,000-meter race in 14:09.14. Maag’s time was second in school history only to Bill Burke ’91, and Nightingale’s time ranked third in school history.
“Michael Maag’s run is a great accomplishment, and it shows that he is one of the best 3K runners in the country, and we are hoping that he will keep improving throughout the year,” head coach Fred Samara said. “David Nightingale, who has been working through a tough injury, ran in an exceptional time, and the more races he gets under his belt, the better he’s going to be.”
In New Haven, the men won 10 of 15 events, tallying a final score of 92 points. The Bulldogs were a distant second with 53 points, and the Crimson had just 25 points in the meet.
The Tigers’ success extended to the field, where they won all six events. Princeton’s junior Alex Pessala and freshman Craig Pearce dominated in the weight throw. Pessala’s throw of more than 61 feet gave him the win and an IC4A indoor qualifying mark. Pearce came in second with a throw of over 58 feet, well ahead of the 54-foot third-place throw.
Sophomore Eric Plummer won the shot put with a throw of 53 feet, five inches, good for IC4A qualifying. Senior Will Byrd, another qualifier, was the only competitor to clear 16 feet in the pole vault with a jump of 16’ .75”.
In the triple jump, freshman Garner McCloud’s jump of 47’ .25” was good enough to win and qualify for IC4A. Sophomores Justin Frick and Ian Fox, once again pushing each other to victory, both cleared the 6’ 10.25” mark in the high jump, thus qualifying for the IC4A championship. In the long jump, senior Nick Crumptom won with a leap of 22’ 9.75”.
Even without their teammates, Tiger senior James O’Toole won and qualified in the mile and sophomore Ben Sitler, senior Justin Pines and senior Frank Tinney took the top three places in the 3,000-meter race. In the shorter distances, freshman Mike Eddy and junior Ian Thompson won the 500- and 400-meter races, respectively.
“We had a lot of outstanding performances today,” Samara said. “I think the most significant thing for our team was that we had a number of athletes come back from injuries, including Eric Plummer, [sophomore] Chad Faulkner, Nick Crumptom and [freshman] Jordan Sawadogo.”
The women won their tri-meet with a final score of 62 points. Harvard took second with 58 points and the home team, Yale, finished with 39 points.
Sophomore Liz Costello, sophomore Christy Johnson and freshman Ashley Higginson took the top three spots in the mile, and all qualified for the IC4A championships.
Higginson also came up big for the Orange and Black in the 3,000-meter race, winning and qualifying with a time of 9:43.42.
The two-mile relay group relay group absolutely crushed the competition, winning the race by almost seven seconds.
In the shot put, freshman Thanithia Billings’ toss of 44’ 3.5” was an easy winner.
Both teams return to action next weekend at the Princeton Invitational, held in nearby Lawrenceville.
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