This weekend the men of Yale track and field showed that even dividing themselves up geographically and subjecting themselves to various weather conditions cannot keep them from succeeding.

Last Friday and Saturday, one part of the Bulldog squad competed at the Duke Invitational in Raleigh, N.C., while on Sunday the rest traveled to Philadelphia for the University of Pennsylvania Invite. As invitationals, neither meet involved final team scores. But the Elis put some solid individual performances under their belts. Some of the most significant results were turned in by Eoghan O’Dwyer ’04 at Penn and Josh Yelsey ’05 at Duke.

Captain Rob Lobue ’04 said the meets went well even though the team has been exhausted from their workouts.

“We were not fully rested and some guys were pretty beat up,” Lobue said. “We did get some good times despite the fact of training through [the weekend’s meets].”

On Friday, despite the cool and overcast weather, Yelsey raced in the 1,500-meter run and finished fifth. Yelsey’s time was 3:48.83, which he said was a little slower than he thinks he is capable of running.

“I expected a fast race to pull me through to a good time, but we went out too slow,” Yelsey said. “Last half was fast, but the other guys kind of let me down. Still, though, it was nice to get a PR.”

Casey Moriarty ’05 also competed well in the 1,500, clocking in at 3:53.37 with 13th place.

In the shorter events on Saturday, the weather improved and the brighter skies seemed to have lifted the Elis. Three Bulldogs recorded top performances. Shomari Taylor ’06 and Mike Brown ’06 came in fifth and sixth, respectively, in the 400-meter hurdles “develop” heat. It was a close race as Taylor finished with a 55.05 and Brown with a 55.07. Lobue also had a strong race, earning eighth in the competitive seeded finals of the 800-meter. Lobue finished with a 1:51.88, only 1.74 seconds behind the winner from the Una-Nike Farm Team, Brendan Fitzgibbon.

There were two other particularly notable performances at Duke. One was from jumper Jihad Beauchman ’06, who recorded a distance of 14.52 meters in the triple jump to earn fifth place. The other was from the 4 x 800-meter relay team, who also finished fifth with a time of 7:39.52. The team was composed of lead-off Bobby Dwyer ’04, followed by Matt Boshart ’06, Yelsey, and Lobue as anchor.

While the Elis at Duke were fortunate to have fairly good conditions for competition, those at Penn were not so lucky. Torrential rains forced the cancellation of the hammer throw halfway through competition and the discus and javelin never even got started. Nonetheless, Bulldog throwers had a particularly successful day.

O’Dwyer had the top Yale finish, throwing the hammer 50.69 meters to take third place. Cornell’s Giles Langley-Cook, who finished second at last year’s outdoor Heps, won the event. O’Dwyer said he was happy with his third place performance.

“The meet had some of the best competition we came up against in the throws, like Army, Navy and Cornell,” O’Dwyer said. “I feel like I could have performed better than I did, though, the remainder of my throws were cancelled due to the flooding of the throwing area.”

O’Dwyer said this is an especially successful performance because of the difficult transition from the weight throw indoors to the hammer outdoors.

“The hammer outdoors is a completely different event, much more skillful than the weight indoors where brute force can get you a long way,” O’Dwyer said.

Also competing in the hammer were Nate Lawrie ’04 and John Langhauser ’07. Lawrie finished seventh with his 44.98 meter while Langhauser’s 29.47 earned him 18th.

Langhauser was more successful in the shot put, though. He came in fifth with a distance of 14.01 meters.

Another highlight of the Penn meet was Jordan Chapman ’05 with his finish in the pole vault. He attained a height of 4.60 meters to tie for third.

At this point in the season, given how the Elis competed this weekend, Lobue said the team is in a fairly strong position.

“We aren’t just good in a few events,” Lobue said. “We are pretty well represented across the board where we haven’t been in years past.”

With this weekend to add to the team’s confidence, the Bulldogs will next compete at the Delaware Invitational this Saturday.

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