Men's Indoor Completes New England Championships

The Central Connecticut men's indoor track and field team completed the second and final day of competition at the 47th annual New England NEICAAA Championships on Saturday. The two-day championships were held at Boston University inside the Boston University Track and Tennis Center. The Blue Devils finished in 16th place overall with 17 total points out of 33 teams from across the entire Northeast who scored at the meet.

Seniors Jordan Watkins and Jamal Fruster and sophomore Jevon Elmore highlighted the second day of competition for the Blue Devils. All three athletes competed in the finals of their respective races and earned all 11 points toward the Blue Devils score on day two.

Watkins started things off, bettering his preliminary finish by two places and finished sixth in the semifinal round on Saturday with a time of 8.31. His time earned him a spot in the finals heat where he ran .01 seconds faster to finish sixth overall with a time of 8.30. His result earned 3 points for the Blue Devils score.

Elmore was next to qualify for his respective finals heat, the 60 meter dash. The sophomore finished sixth in the semifinal round with a time of 6.99 to advance to the finals. In the finals, Elmore moved up another spot and finished fifth overall, coming in at 6.94 to earn four points for CCSU. The race was a photo finish as Elmore was just .04 seconds behind the first place runner.

In the 400 meter dash finals, Jamal Fruster clocked in a blistering time of 48.55. The senior standout's time earned him a fifth place overall finish and four points toward the CCSU team score.

Junior Dashawn Putman picked up a 12th place finish in the high jump. Putman cleared 1.94 meters to earn the finish.

Freshman Tyler Latham completed the final three events of the Heptathlon at the New England Championships as the only other competitor for CCSU on the day. The rookie scored 1,633 points over the last three events to finish with 4,415 total points, good for an 11th place finish.

Latham began the day competing in the 60 meter hurdles event of the heptathlon. He recorded a runner-up performance, taking the silver with a time of 8.40 and earned 884 points. The pole vault hurt Latham's chances of finishing on the podium in the heptathlon after he was unable to score any points in the event. He bounced back, however, and recorded a new personal-record in the 1,000 meter run with a time of 2:51.59. His time earned him a fifth place finish and 749 points in the final event, but he could finish no better than 11th overall.

Northeastern was crowned the New England NEICAAA Champions after recording 161 total points as a team, 72 points better than the second place Rams from Rhode Island. Southern Connecticut was third with 51 points followed by Southern Maine (43.50) and MIT (41) to round out the top-five.

The Blue Devils will return to action next weekend on Mar. 7 and 8 with the IC4A/ECAC Championships back inside the Boston University Track and Tennis Center on the campus of Boston University. A link to the live results will be posted as it becomes available.