The men’s indoor track and field team began the indoor season with impressive performances at the Cornell Relays on Saturday in Barton Hall at Cornell University. The 2008 relays had over a dozen teams competing in the unscored event.

Sophomore Jeff Wetmore broke the college’s men’s track and field record in the 300-meter dash, finishing in 36.1 seconds during the third heat. In the following heat, sophomore Max Orenstein broke the record with 35.9.

Junior Phil Abbott placed 13th in the 5000-meter run with a time of 16:08 minutes.

Senior captain Chris Covino stepped into a coaching role at the meet because of the absence of Head Coach Jim Nichols, who was attending a conference in Nevada.

Covino and Wetmore both suffered mild injuries during the meet but they are still expected to compete in the January 17th meet.

Senior distance runner Danny George described the Cornell Relays as a way to see how far the team has come since the preseason and where it needs to go.

“All of our sprinters are pretty versatile, short distances to long, which helps out our relays,” George said. “We’re really deep.”

George said the expectations were not set particularly high for Saturday’s meet.

“We’re still getting out the kinks and shaking off the dust,” George said.

Junior Joel Trager said while this meet is not the most important of the season, it allows the Bombers to identify the teams’ strengths, weaknesses and progress.

“The Cornell Relays are a good indication as to where we are so far in our season,” Trager said. “We’re well off, but we can still get better and improve.”

Trager said the squad looks strong, and will be promising from the winter into the spring season.

“The newcomers are looking good,” Trager said. “There’s going to be things we’ll look into, but I think we’ve got a good start.”

The next meet for the Blue and Gold is at 11 a.m. Jan. 17 at the Tiger Classic at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y.