GETTYSBURG, Pa. - Led by three polished veterans and an upstart freshman, the men's 4x800-meter relay team provided an electrifying – and record-breaking – performance at the Centennial Conference (CC) Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Swarthmore College.
On an unseasonably hot spring afternoon, the foursome of senior
Chris McCullough, freshman
Joe Sharp, senior
Adrian Macdonald, and junior
Clay Reynolds made up ground throughout the race, took the lead in the final lap, and held off a late surge by Haverford in the final 200 meters. The victory gave Gettysburg its first gold medal in a men's distance event at a CC outdoor championship, and its time of 7:43.42 was both a school and conference meet record.
Running the leadoff leg was McCullough, a long-distance specialist who seldom competed in races as short as the 800. But even though he was scheduled to run his best event, the 5,000 meters, the following afternoon, McCullough held nothing back, clocking a personal-best split of 1:58.3 and putting his team into sixth or seventh place in the nine-team race.
McCullough handed the baton to Sharp, a 400-800 specialist. A promising rookie who was still improving after missing all of cross country season with an injury, Sharp passed several runners and was clocked at an identical 1:58.3, putting the Bullets in excellent position. Heading into the final two legs, Gettysburg was in prime striking distance with its two record-setting middle distance specialists waiting in the wings.
Macdonald took the baton for the third leg. Coming off an outstanding indoor season in which he shattered a 33-year-old school record in the mile (4:12), Macdonald had already qualified for the final of the 800-meter run earlier in the day. He cranked out a 1:54.5 split – also a personal best – to move Gettysburg even closer to the front of the pack, as the Bullets trailed only Johns Hopkins and frontrunner Haverford heading into the final leg.
Also running his second race of the day, Reynolds followed up with a gutsy performance. Like Macdonald, Reynolds had turned in a stellar indoor campaign in which he broke the school record and won the Centennial Conference title in the 800. And in the preliminaries of the 800 earlier that afternoon, he had posted the top time of the day with a 1:54.00.
Reynolds blasted out of the exchange zone and ripped through his first 400 in a blistering 52.4 seconds, taking the lead heading into the race's final lap. Despite his torrid early pace, however, he held together over the next 200 meters before Haverford's anchor leg made a move to pass on the final turn. But Reynolds dug deep for a surge of his own and crossed the finish line with a personal-best split of 1:52.1.
Gettysburg's victory made them just the third school to win a 4x800 title at the CC outdoor meet. In the 16 years since the inception of the conference, Haverford had captured the event 14 times with Muhlenberg winning the other two. The Bullets ended up topping the conference record by 2.68 seconds while shattering the 32-year-old school record by 12 seconds.
Macdonald concluded his outstanding senior campaign by capturing the bronze in both the 800 and the 1,500 the next day before hitting an NCAA provisional-qualifying mark in the 1,500 later in the year. Reynolds also ran a provisional-qualifying time in the 800 and missed making the final cut by just 0.37 seconds.
