Men’s track & field made history this weekend by claiming their first ever Centennial Conference championship at Ursinus College. In Hollywood fashion, the competition for the hallowed title came down to the final event, the 4x400-meter relay, as Hopkins raced past long time rival Haverford for the historic win. Besides the showstopping ending, junior Alex Jebb was a riveting point of excitement throughout the evening. Jebb personally contributed 22 points towards the Jays’ win, getting on the board for the 60m, 60 hurdles, long and triple jump, and the heptathlon where he medaled second. Jebb sat down to shed light on the monumental moment and reflect on his personal experience.
The News-Letter (N-L): How would you describe the overall invitational stage of your season?
Alex Jebb (AJ): The regular season had a lot of ups and downs for me personally, but the coaches did a great job of making sure I stayed positive and kept working through things with the end goal in mind. As a team, we kept putting in the work throughout the season and it showed in the results every week as the season went along.
N-L: What were the peaks and valleys and how did you get past any setbacks?
AJ: The Penn State meet was rough, but going over the film from that meet with Coach Van Allen and Coach McDonald, our jumping coach, proved very valuable moving forward in the season. It allowed us to work on a few mechanical flaws in my jumps and that started to pay off just two weeks later at the Bucknell meet. Obviously, the high point of the season was winning our first Conference Championship.
N-L: What was your personal attitude going into this weekend?
AJ: I was definitely more nervous going into this meet than any other, but every time I played out the meet in my head I couldn’t see us going to Conferences and not winning. I knew we were a better team than Haverford, so it was just a matter of us executing and making sure everybody else knew it as well. The team’s resiliency and family-like attitude are some of our biggest strengths, and it showed this past weekend.
N-L: How did the team’s strong performance at the Keogh Invite affect the team’s outlook?
AJ: The Keogh Invite gave us a lot of momentum headed into Conferences. After every weekend for the past month, we narrowed the projected score gap between Haverford and us, and just kept chipping away at it. At the Keogh Invite, our long sprinters really stepped up, and that turned out to be a preview of what guys like Colin O’Connor and Collin Rozanski would do at Conferences. The coaches made sure our team peaked at the right time, across all the events.
N-L: How important were the field events to this weekend’s conference win?
AJ: The field events have always been the backbone of our team at Conferences. This year, Heptathlon was added to the Conference meet and it became our kind of secret weapon. Guys like Ryan Walsh and Devin Conley embraced it and came through for us in a huge way. That, combined with the distance crew being able to hang with Haverford this year and neutralize a lot of their distance points, is what put us over the top this time.
N-L: Describe your personal performance at Conferences.
AJ: Overall, my events at Conferences didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped but I did all I could to contribute. I feel like I did a good job of keeping the team’s energy up when we had our down moments, so I’m happy with that.
N-L: You competed in 11 events overall, if you break up each stage of the heptathlon. Considering this taxing load, how did you manage to stay focused and rested for each successive event?
AJ: Staying rested during the weekend was a lost cause, but the schedule of events actually made staying focused on each event easier. Saturday was 9 hours of constant competition, so I didn’t have time to focus on anything but the next event. A questionably healthy combination of caffeine and painkillers also made the day a little easier.
N-L: Lastly, what did this historic win mean for your team?
AJ: This win means everything for our team and the program. As soon as we knew we won, everyone went crazy — it was like nothing I’ve ever been a part of it. One of the best things was getting congratulatory texts throughout the night from old teammates, as everyone who has been a part of the program was so proud. We’ve been working towards this for so long, and for it to finally all come together was amazing.
