Roman Sosa and Marcus Vaughn watched the videotape, and they looked practically identical. Step by step, stride by stride, jump to jump until the finish line, when Sosa eked past Vaughn in a photo finish to the 60-meter hurdles.

Sosa’s first-place finish was among the many noteworthy performances as Syracuse closed out the indoor track and field regular season at Bucknell on Saturday. The Orange competes this weekend at the Carrier Dome for the Big East Championships.

‘A lot of people who haven’t achieved qualifying times got to race to get those times,’ graduate assistant Dave Heglane said. ‘And those who have qualified got to work on the technical things that they’ve been working on in practice.’

Sosa and Vaughn are examples of the latter. Sosa equaled his qualifying time of 8.32 seconds while Vaughn set a new personal best of 8.38 seconds. Sosa was reluctant in accepting credit for the first-place finish, but is licking his lips in anticipation of carrying the momentum into the Big East Championships.

‘It wasn’t that big of a meet,’ Sosa said. ‘But I’m glad of the victory. I’m excited for some better competition, though.’

Whoever the competition is, perhaps Sosa’s toughest adversary lives in the same room as him. Vaughn, Sosa’s roommate, insists the freshmen strive off each others’ success.

‘We’re mirror images of each other,’ Vaughn said. ‘It’s a healthy rivalry. I’m glad I came here with someone like that. It’s good for both of us to push each other.’

Both are pure hurdlers, according to Heglane. Sosa said he was assigned to hurdling in high school because of his long legs and has excelled ever since. Vaughn said that hurdling is basically just a form of sprinting and doesn’t find the distinction to be a big deal.

Saturday’s race was an example of Vaughn’s ‘mirror image’ reference. The duo was stride for stride through 80 percent of the race until Sosa pulled away at the end. Vaughn seemed happy for his roommate, but mentioned that he is continually improving and catching up to Sosa.

‘I’ve gotten better every week,’ Vaughn said. ‘After this race, we went right over to coach and watched videotape of the photo finish. Every time we touched the ground, our footwork was exactly the same; our arm work was exactly the same. We were right beside each other; he just pulled away at the end.’

For the freshmen, it was just another step in a career the tandem expects to be filled with photo finishes. Vaughn mentioned how excited the coaches are for their future.

‘They’re not anywhere near their potential yet,’ Heglane said. ‘They’re both making some good technical adjustments. They’re getting a lot thrown at them every day in practice, trying to process a lot of different things and they’re doing a very good job of just relaxing and letting it happen.’

This weekend will be a good barometer of their progress. Technically, the duo is making adjustments and Heglane feels that both are ready for a breakout race.

‘It’s been a long season and everyone is pretty beat up,’ Sosa said. ‘We’re taking this week a little easy, but we’ll be ready.’

‘All the technical adjustments are things we do in practice,’ Heglane said. ‘In meets, it’s a matter of being on autopilot. If they just relax and do what they do every day in practice, they will be fine.’

Published on February 14, 2005 at 12:00 pm