Men’s track and field endures weather for NESCACs

This Saturday, April 27, the Bates men’s track and field team traveled to Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont to compete in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Championship Meet. The weather was less than ideal for them, with rain and wind enduring throughout the whole day’s competitions.

When asked about the weather, Justin Levine ’20 admitted it was a challenge: “It was just freezing, so it was tough to stay outside. During the race itself the wind was really strong on the back half of the track,” said Levine. “But the times were really slow, which was frustrating, because the wind just held you back. It was deceiving, it felt like you were running faster than you were because of the wind. But everyone on the team did a really good job of staying positive and not letting it affect them.”

Miles Nabritt ’20 added that “It was just one of those meets where we had to battle it out. The weather wasn’t what we were used to so that made it difficult. It was a group effort, mentally, to just push through out individual races.”

Despite such harsh conditions, the men’s track and field team put up a great effort and had some outstanding performances. Zach Smith ’21 scored first place in the javelin with a throw of 52.99 meters. This was especially exciting to watch because the defending champion, Henry Hintermeister from Tufts, was heavily favored to win. Beaufils Kimpolo-Pene ’20 scored second place in the high jump with a jump of 1.95 meters, just beating out Joseph Staudt of Bowdoin and Danny Renwick of Williams who also jumped 1.95 meters, but who used more attempts to clear that height. John Rex ’21 scored second in the hammer throw with a throw of 55.11 meters. Rex also scored third in the shot put with a throw of 14.35 meters. Captain Brendan Donahue ’20 scored third in the triple jump with a jump of 13.71 meters.

On the track, Bart Rust ’22 scored third place in the 3000 meter steeplechase race, running a time of 9:32.09, and beating out fourth place by 0.73 seconds. Levine was quick to name Rust’s race as one of the most exciting of the day: “Bart was excellent! He ran very smartly. He was in seventh for a lot of it but kept moving up. On the last lap he outkicked a lot of really great steeplers. It’s super impressive that he came in third as a freshman at NESCACs.”

Nabritt pointed out a few performances on the sprinting side that, while they didn’t score, were exciting to watch. Ryan Corley ’19 ran an exceptional race in the 200 meter dash of 22.73. Also, Anas Reda ’20 ran a personal best in the 100 meter dash of 11.66.

The men’s team came in fifth place overall at the meet, scoring 69 points. Considering the challenging weather conditions, the men did a great job showing up and competing. Next week, they will be competing in the New England Division III Championship Meet at Williams College in Williamston, Massachusetts. As Nabritt said, they “will just have to move on and rebound from this week’s meet to bring our best to Williams.” This was a great meet to kickoff championship season, and they certainly are a team to watch moving forward.