COLLEGEVILLE, Pa. – The Haverford College men's outdoor track & field team captured the 2012 Centennial Conference outdoor championship title on Sunday afternoon, squeezing past runner-up Johns Hopkins University by five points.
The Fords accumulated 177 points to Hopkins' 172 over the three days of the meet hosted by Ursinus College. Dickinson College was third with 132 points.
Haverford's Jordan Schilit won Friday night's 10,000 meter run and Sunday's 1,500 and 5,000 meter runs earning the conference championship's male track performer of the meet award.
Haverford captured the trifecta with the outdoor track title having already won the cross country and indoor track championships during the 2011-12 academic year.
Hopkins owned the lead heading into the meet's final two events Sunday afternoon -- the 5,000 and the 4x400 relay.
Schilit led a quartet of Fords across the finish ahead of all others in the 5,000, though, to provide Haverford with it's first lead since the early events of Day 2. Schilit won the race with a time of 14 minutes, 47.20 seconds finishing ahead of teammates Faraz Sohail in second, Christopher Stadler in third and Peter Kissin in fourth. Andrew Sturner's seventh-place finish gave the Fords five of the event's eight points positions.
That left things up to the Fords' 4x400 relay and the quartet of Sam Callon, Andrew Golato, Willie Xiang and Tim Schoch were able to finish right behind second-place Johns Hopkins to maintain the advantage in the team race and clinch the conference title. Muhlenberg College won the race clocking a time of 3:19.35, the Blue Jays finished in 3:19.87 with the Fords nipping at their heels in 3:20.37.
Coming into the final day the Blue Jays had led Haverford by a slim three points but the Fords were able to erase the deficit in the day's first individual event final on the track. Four of the top five finishers in the 1,500 meter run -- spearheaded by Schilit's second event win -- enabled the men to wrest the lead away from the Blue Jays. Tim Schoch finished second to Schilit with Ivo Milic-Strkalj and Michael Riccio placing fourth and fifth, respectively.
Callon, in third, and a fifth-place Xiang helped the Haverford cause in the 400 but Hopkins was squeezing points out of the 100, the hurdle events and in the jumps and throws.
Schoch and Golato went 1-2 in the 800, with Riccio in fifth, to keep the Fords close, and Callon added another third-place finish with his result in the 200 setting up the late-meet dramatics by the crew in the 5,000 and final relay.
The 2012 championship is Haverford's 17th outdoor Centennial title.
With the men's team's better finish over fifth-place Swarthmore College combined with the Haverford women finishing higher than Swarthmore in the women's meet, the Fords captured the 2011-12 Hood Trophy, 9.5–8.5 points, in the friendly head-to-head competition between the two institutions.