TECH PLACES 2ND IN GREATER BOSTON CHAMPIONSHIPS
Held Out Athletes Hope to Heal for New England Division III Championship
February 8, 2003
The second annual revival of the Greater Boston Championship with Bentley, Brandeis, Harvard, MIT and Northeastern competing at the MIT Johnson track took place today with Northeastern showing their power as they easily outscored MIT 200.5 to 106.5. Harvard was 3rd with 66 points, followed by Bentley with 55 and Brandeis with 17.
Both Harvard and MIT left many key competitors out of the competition for different reasons. Harvard felt they needed to rest individuals for their meet with Princeton and Yale next week. MIT had many individuals who could have competed but needed another week to get back to 100% after minor injuries. With the New England Division III Championship in two weeks, MIT was not taking any chances with risking additional injury.
MIT had many key performances but seemed to have difficulty rallying the entire team with so many key individuals not competing. In the field developments, the throws once again led the way. In the weight throw, Chris Khan finished 2nd with a throw of 55-9 3/4. Vinny Tortorella of Northeastern set a facility record with his throw of 70-1 for the victory. Uzoma Orji set a freshman record with his throw of 52-7 3/4 to finish 4th and David Saylor finished 5th with 49-11 3/4. In the shot put, Orji did not have a great day but still finished 3rd with a throw of 50-8 1/2. Khan had a season best of 43-6 1/2 to place 6th.
In the horizontal jumps, MIT went 1-2 in the long jump with their only two participants, Craig Mielcarz 21-0 1/2, and Austin Neudecker 20-6 3/4. Resting Brian Hoying and Tom Hoover kept Tech from sweeping 1-4. The triple jumps did not go so well as Neudecker could not duplicate his 45' effort from a week ago and finished 4th with 42-9. Rick Rajter fell in the hurdle final, bruising his heel and could not finish competition in the triple jump. Victor Williamson managed a 6th with 41-5 1/4.
Craig Mielcarz won the high jump with a leap of 6-8 and was supported by Rajter in 4th with 6-2 and Neudecker in 6th, also with 6-2. Nate Ball took another week off, allowing the win to go at 15'. Josh Chartier placed 6th with his jump of 12'6.
The sprints went pretty well for MIT with David Blau continuing to have a great year, running 6.67 for a third week in a row, placing 5th, and placing 6th in the 200 with a PR of 23.38. Zach Traina, not scoring in the 55, did place 3rd in the 200 with a 22.98 effort. In the 55HH, Rajter had the third best time in the trials, but did not finish in the final. Mielcarz placed 4th and Chris Peterson tied for 5th in hand times of 8.0 and 8.2 respectively.
If Hoying had run, MIT would have placed 3rd in the 400. Without him and Hoover, the best Tech could do was a 10th place by Thad Wozniak who ran a personal best of 52.40.
The 800 and mile were once again the Brian Anderson show. In the mile, Anderson let the opposition do the lead work for the first 600 meters, then took over, winning by over 4 seconds in 4:18.41. Thirty minutes later, Anderson toed the line in the 800. Elbowed hard at the start, Anderson dropped to the rear of the front pack but noticing an opening, quickly moved up towards the front. Taking elbows along the way, he also was stepped on, knocking his shoe partially off. For nearly the entire 2nd 200, he tried to force the shoe back on his heel, finally succeeding with 400 to go. After coming through in 57 for the 400, Anderson had some work to do to move to the front. On his last 200, he turned in a 28 to overtake the leader and win going away with a season best 1:55.57.
Allowing Sean Nolan and Ben Schmeckpeper another week to heel, Craig Wildman took over the honors of defending MIT turf in the 5000. Going after the win left Wildman in oxygen debt for the last mile, causing him to slow to a still respectable 15:37.51 for 4th place.
Next week, MIT will be at home in the non-scoring Coed Invitational. Brian Anderson will go to Boston University to race the 1500 in the Fastrack Invitational.