This weekend, the men’s track and field team traveled to Boston for two competitive meets.

The Elis competed Friday at the Adidas Boston Indoor Games, finishing fifth overall with 53 points. The host team, Northeastern University, won the meet, recording a team score of 117.33. The Bulldogs wrapped up the weekend with the Boston University Invitational. Even though the later meet did not keep team score, the Elis recorded some excellent individual performances.

Captain Robert Lobue ’04 had the most notable showing at BU. He came in sixth in the 800-meter run against professional runners from Nike and Reebok. Lobue’s finishing time of 1:50.18 places him in provisional qualifying status forÊIndoor NCAAs.

“I am excited because it was my goal to get the provisional time,” Lobue said. “The race went out a little slower than I expected, but with 300 [meters] to go the Nike farm team guys picked it up and I tried to stay with them.”

As captain, Lobue also said he was pleased with how the team performed in Boston.

“As a whole, we had a total of 13 guys hitting personal records, which is great,” Lobue said. “We also had a lot of runners qualify for IC4A’s.”

In the other distance events on Saturday, the Bulldogs showed their depth and strength. In the 1000-meter run, the Elis swept third through sixth place. Reed Mauser ’05 ran a time of 2:28.31, good for third place. Mauser was followed by Brian Gertzen ’07, Nathan Clute ’07 and Mark Falco ’06.

In the 1600-meter run, Josh Yelsey ’05 was the best Bulldog finisher. Yelsey ran a 4:08.31 mile to earn third place for his efforts.

In the longest event of the day, the 5000-meter, Luke Meyer ’05 ran to a fifth place finish. Meyer’s time for his one race of the day was 14:27.52. Meyer said he was not very pleased with his race.

“The time I wanted to hit didn’t quite happen,” Meyer said. “The race started slow but by the last mile I was feeling tired. It was not a bad race, just not a great race.”

While the distance corps was the success story on Saturday, the sprinters and field athletes led the Elis on Friday. The best Bulldog finish at the Indoor Games was the victory of Shomari Taylor ’06 in the long jump. Taylor’s jump of 6.94 meters was golden for him. Another jumper who performed well was Jihad Beauchman ’06. Beauchman was second in the triple jump with a distance of 14.39 meters.

The Elis’ top pole vaulter added points as well. Jordan Chapman ’05 vaulted to fourth place with a height of 4.41 meters.

The Bulldog throwers had successes on the field. Eoghan O’Dwyer ’04 and John Langhauser ’07 each posted fourth place finishes. O’Dwyer threw 15.61 meters in the hammer throw while Langhauser threw the shot put 14.90 meters.

On the track, the Bulldogs put their hard training into effect. Robert DeLaski ’06 posted a second place finish in the 500-meter dash. DeLaski’s time of 1:03.32 placed him barely out of first place, which was taken by Georgetown’s James Graham with a 1:02.99 finish.

Another Eli sprinter who ran with success was Russell Kempf ’07. In the 55-meter dash, the shortest event of the meet, Kempf ran a 6.60, good for fourth place. Kempf said he was not very pleased with his race because he has not shown much improvement lately.

“I ran the same time as I have been running as season, and this time I feel like I did not get a good start in the finals,” Kempf said. “Conference is only four weeks away, so I should be be racing a lot faster by then.”

The best finish on Friday by a distance runner was earned by Andrew Pitts ’07. He ran 4:19.08 in the mile run, good for fourth.

The Elis next face Cornell in a dual meet at home.