Heat Sheets: Saturday | Sunday
HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Centennial Conference indoor track and field season will come to an end this weekend as Haverford College will host the 2015 championship meet at The Gary Lutnick Tennis & Track Center in the Alumni Field House.
The Fords will return three individual champions and two relay winners from last year. Junior Charlie Marquardt will defend his mile title and look to win the 800m. Marquardt ran the fastest mile (4:07.90) in Division III this year in the BU David Hemery Valentine Invitational.
The junior was also part of the 4x800 relay that won the conference crown last year. He's won the Centennial Conference Men's Track Athlete of the Week three times this season and was named the US Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches' Association Division III National Athlete of the Week in early February.
Haverford has three others runners in the 800m event. Senior Soren Rasmussen had his top run this season (1:57.96) at the Tufts Stampede in January. Junior Ryan Gooding has the eighth best time in the conference (1:59.03) while senior Chris Gardner's leading run (1:59.61) was the 11th fastest time in Centennial this year. The Fords also have four of the top eight seeds in the mile. Freshman Henry Woods (4:19.42) and sophomore Michael Brier (4.20.19) had the fourth and fifth fastest times in the conference last week at the Keogh Invitational.
Junior Jeffrey Ainsley was one of Haverford's individual champions last season, taking home the 60m hurdles event after setting the program record (8.42). Junior Dorvil Gabriel will also run after his top season time (9.14) at the McElligott Invitational last month.
The Fords have the top two seeds in the 3000m and 5000m events in seniors David Roza and Joel Christian. Roza broke his career best mark in the 3000m at the Keogh Invitational (8:28.47) as did Christian (8:34.00). Senior Jeffrey Duncan also toppled his personal mark (8:47.66) at the Keogh Invitational while sophomore Jimmy Gorman (8:50.33) and junior Nicholas Gandolfo-Lucia (8:50.67) also placed times ranked among the top 10 runs in the conference. Gorman also has a top ten time in the Centennial Conference in the 5000m.
Junior Jonathan Yellets was last year's conference champion in the 400m and placed third in the 200m. Senior Sam Callon is also running in the 200m and was an All-CC honorable mention in 2012.
The 4x200m relay of Ainsley, Yellets, Callon and sophomore Alex Frost had the fastest run this season in the Centennial by almost four seconds. The 4x800 relay of Roza, Marquardt, Gooding and sophomore Julian Schneider ran the quickest conference time by almost eight seconds. Woods, Yellets, Rasmussen and Marquardt had the 13th speediest time in Division III in the distance medley relay during the 2015 campaign.
Junior Robert Parry, senior Alex Smith and freshman Josiah Legaspi will participate in the shot put. Smith threw his career best (12.59m) this year while Parry placed seventh in last season's conference meet.
The high jump will feature three Fords including senior Gibby Graves who finished third in the 2013 outdoor conference meet. Graves will also partake in the triple jump and the long jump. The senior won the outdoor Centennial individual championships in the long jump twice (2012, 2014) and the triple jump (2014). Ainsley, who placed fourth last season and senior Chaz Schneider will also compete in the high jump event. Freshman Daniel Sax will also enter in the triple jump after winning the event at the Keogh Invitational last week.
Head coach Tom Donnelly's squad has finished second the past two seasons to Johns Hopkins. The Fords have won 17 of the 21 Centennial Conference indoor titles. Several of Haverford's athletes look to continue their season at the NCAA Division III 2015 Indoor Championship on Mar. 13-14, hosted by Roanoke College in Winston-Salem, N.C.