Men’s Track and Field Season Off to Running Start

While most teams cram a season into a two-month whirlwind, men’s track and field is in it for the long haul. With 23 meets spanning from early January to late May, it takes both patience and dedication to perform at a high level over the course of the long season.

The Mammoths kicked off the 2020 campaign at Wesleyan, competing in the famous Little III Championships with Williams and Wesleyan. While Williams entered the meet with a 31-year winning-streak, the team left Middletown empty-handed. Amherst squeaked by the Ephs by 2 points, icing the victory with a dominant performance in the 4×400 relay.

After Henry Buren ’22 set a school record with a 6.97 second 60 meter dash at the Mary Grinaker Invitational, the Mammoths broke two more records at the Update Challenge hosted by Cornell. Kelechi Eziri ’23 smashed a 26-year old mark in the triple jump, posting a distance of 14.09 meters; additionally, Troy Colleran ’22 broke his own school record in the heptathlon, scoring a whopping 4962 points. In the most recent meet, the Branwen Smith-King Invitational at Tufts, the Mammoths finished seventh out of 22 teams, with several athletes clinching qualifying times for DIII New England regionals.

In the coming weeks, the team will be prepping for the challenges in the months ahead, including the regional championship and, potentailly, the national championship meets. Other teams and athletes cannot help but watch as the runners bound over hurdles, the throwers launch weighted training devices for the shot put, and jumpers propel themselves into a pit of sand. Jack Trent ’23, a first year heptathlon runner from Texas, puts it best when asked why men’s track and field is performing at an elite level: “It’s all just run, rest, recover, repeat.”