HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford College men's outdoor track and field team, following a second place finish at the Centennial Conference Indoor Championship, will get its spring season underway at the Danny Curran Invitational hosted by Widener on Friday at 5 p.m.
NCAA All-American Charlie Marquardt (1,500m) returns to the team that finished second at the 2015 Centennial Conference Outdoor Track Championship. The Fords will return 15 top ten performers from this meet. Graduated from last year's team are NCAA qualifiers David Roza and Joel Christian, as well as Centennial Conference Champion Gibby Graves (High jump, Long jump, Triple jump).
During the indoor season, the Fords had five individual champions and two relay teams pick up wins at the conference meet, totaling seven champions in 17 events. No other team had more than three winners. Haverford finished second to Johns Hopkins in the team standings for the fourth consecutive season. On the outdoor track, head coach Tom Donnelly's team has won the Centennial 18 times in the conference's 22 years and has never finished lower than second.
While Marquardt is the only returning conference champion from last season, senior Jonathan Yellets looks to repeat his success as the winner of the 2013-14 400m. Yellets placed third last season in the same event and is expected to be a featured runner in the sprints this year along with standouts Alex Frost and Jeffrey Ainsley.
In the distance races, Haverford returns senior Dylan Verner-Crist and junior Jimmy Gorman, who both picked up top ten finishes in last year's 10,000m at the conference championship.
Henry Woods (1,500m), Nick Gandolfo-Lucia (3,000 steeplechase, 5,000m), and Dorvil Gabriel (110 hurdles, 400 hurdles) also return from top ten finishes.
The regular season schedule runs through April with meets on every weekend, including the Widener Dual Meet (April 26) hosted at Johnson Track, before Centennial Conference Championship action starts on the first weekend of May at Dickinson College. After the Swarthmore Last Chance Meet (May 16), NCAA Championships (May 26-28) will be hosted by Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.