March 8, 2008
BOSTON - The first day of competition at the IC4A Championships was mostly preliminary heats, but it was nonetheless an exciting one for the Bulldogs. Early on in the meet, held at Boston University, Yale delivered some convincing performances. In the preliminary heats of the 55-meter dash, senior Victor Cheng broke the Yale indoor record with a blazing time of 6.31, giving him the top seed going into tomorrow's finals. Cheng's performance bested Eugene Profit's 22-year-old record of 6.33.
Another Eli, junior Murat Kayali, also earned a top qualifying seed for tomorrow's finals, clocking a personal best 4:07.87 in the mile run. Kayali moved up to the No. 9 spot on Yale's all-time indoor performance list.
Junior Jake Gallagher also broke into Yale's all-time top ten this weekend. In the only running final of the day, the 3,000-meter run, Gallagher earned a tenth-place finish with a personal best time of 8:12.10, ranking him No. 6 in Bulldog history.
Sophomore Eric DePalo was the source of Yale's day one point-total, with a tie for third place in the pole vault. His jump of 4.90m earned 5.5 points for the Bulldogs.
Sophomore Reynolds Holmes placed ninth in the long jump finals with a leap of 6.90m.
The 4x800-meter relay of senior Matthew Bordoni, junior Jared Bell, senior Tadhg O'Callaghan and sophomore Chris Labosky clocked a 7:35.76, the second-fastest qualifying time of the day and a season best.
The Distance Medley relay of sophomore Kevin Brown, freshman Marty Evans, and seniors Nate Clute and Joseph Kingsbery also qualified for tomorrow's competition, running a season-best 9:57.39.
Cheng, Kayali and the two qualifying relays will compete in tomorrow's finals, along with juniors Jeffrey Lachman in the shot put and Samuel Fox in the high jump.
Report by Bevin Peters '09, Yale Sports Publicity
