ANDERSON AND ORJI REMAIN UNDEFEATED
MIT Unable to Take Down Favored Tufts
January 31, 2004
MIT Men's Track and Field team came to Bowdoin College with the hopes and expectations of upsetting a deep and talented team from Tufts University. Despite some remarkable performances and gifts from Tufts, injuries and disappointing distance event performances did them in. When it was all said and done the Jumbos managed 133 points to 123 for MIT and 118 for Bowdoin, who managed to improve significantly in this meet to challenge for the team victory.
When 600 runner Jesse Alejandro missed the bus and meet it put the Engineers in a hole for their relays. Tufts was favored by 25 points going into the meet but had a significant setback when their star freshman horizontal jumper was unable to compete due to an injury, which was worth about 10-15 points when all things were considered. MIT went into the meet without star vaulter, Nate Ball and middle distance runner John Brewer, but the team seemed prepared to step up and get the job done.
In the first events things seemed to be going in Tech's favor. In the 55HH trials, all three MIT hurdlers made the finals and both Marcus Carson and Bo Feng set personal bests. In the dash trials, MIT swept 1-4 with Zach Traina leading the way with a season best 6.67. With the scoring determined to be 7-5-4-3-2-1 in individual events and relays 7-5-0, MIT's sprint depth would be key if they were to win the meet.
In the first final, the triple jump, MIT took advantage of a weak field, inserting a couple of rookies who performed nicely, giving MIT 2nd, 3rd and 5th. However, on his third attempt, Traina, the one jumper who has been performing every week, pulled his hamstring. This eliminated him from the dash finals, the 200 where he was the favorite and the 4x400.
MIT kept their spirits up and kept fighting. In the pole vault, Josh Chartier jumped a personal best of 14-1 to take the victory. Nestor Hernandez secured 2nd place while Tufts had two no heights, one from the vaulter favored to win the event.
Hernandez enjoyed short lived success however. Proceeding over to the long jump, which he was favored to win, Hernandez took a conservative first attempt of 20-11 3/4 to take the lead. On his second attempt, he pulled his hamstring, and had to settle for second place in the event.
Uzoma Orji left nothing to doubt in the 35 lb. weight throw. Any of his throws would have won the event, but his best of 58-6 3/4 won by about seven feet. One of the reasons he won by such a long distance was that teammate, Chris Khan, still suffering from back pain, only took two throws. On his first attempt, Khan threw 49-3 1/2, good enough for second place at the time. He decided to pass his attempts unless someone passed him. A Tufts thrower did just that on his final attempt and Khan was unable to respond with a fair throw.
On the track, things could not be going better. In the mile, Brian Anderson led from start to finish in a sterling time of 4:15.94. Fivos Constantinou supported the effort with his own personal best of 4:25.54, good for 4th place. In the high hurdles, Carson and Feng again ran personal bests of 8.29 and 8.55 respectively.
At this point, the score was MIT 56, Bowdoin 52 and Tufts 44. Bowdoin had dominated the high jump with 16 of the possible 22 points and was hoping to do similar damage in the 400. Tufts' Ray Carre defeated a trio of Bowdoin runners at the wire, but Bowdoin still managed 13 points to take a seven point lead over MIT.
The 600 was a little more evenly split thanks to a big effort by Tech's Jesse Collins, who cracked MIT's top ten list with a 3rd place effort of 1:25.02. Nevertheless, Bowdoin managed nine points to MIT's five to expand their lead to 11 points. Tufts was back at 59, but once the distance events came around they would take the lead if they were close enough beforehand.
Without Traina in the dash final, MIT could only manage 1-2-4 for fifteen points. This brought MIT to within two points, but not the hoped for lead. David Blau's winning time of 6.75 was a season best. Freshmen Jonathan Hsieh and Carson placed second and fourth respectively, sandwiching a Bowdoin runner who ran a great race for third.
Anderson was back in the 800 to keep Bowdoin and Tufts at bay, but without Brewer, only Constantinou would be able to do battle with the leaders in the 1000. Anderson did his job by leading from start to finish with an evenly split 1:55.91 season best. Steve Stoddard stepped up and ran a season best of 2:02.06 for fourth place to give MIT 10 points in the event, out pointing Bowdoin and Tufts with six points each. Constantinou did his job, running a three second PR of 2:37.76 but could only manage third place. No other MIT runners ran well and Tufts took advantage, scoring 16 points. MIT was able to take the lead with 92 points to 88 for Bowdoin and 82 for Tufts.
The 200, along with the shot put were supposed to put the meet away if the distance runners could hold their own. Without Traina, MIT was counting on Matt Lehman and David Blau to take care of business. After a great start, Lehman made it about halfway down the backstretch before pulling his hamstring. The third pull of the day made MIT athletes think a little more than bad luck was going on. Blau was able to secure 3rd and Wozniak 5th, but it was no where near what the Engineers expected. Instead of the six points they scored, MIT would have had at least 13 and Tufts would have scored four less. This 11 point swing would have been enough to win the meet.
Normally, a regular season meet only has either the 3000 or 5000 but not both. Having both races certainly worked to Tufts advantage and they did their best to seize the moment. Between the two events there were a possible 44 points. In part, due to poor running on the part of some of MIT's normally reliable distance runners, but mostly due to their own depth and ability, Tufts scored 28 points in the two events compared to six to MIT and 10 for Bowdoin. Tufts took a 16 point lead over MIT and Bowdoin.
With Traina and Lehman out of the 1600 relay, MIT put together a team with no chance to win but running in case one of the other teams did not finish or got disqualified. Neither Bowdoin, nor Tufts disappointed, running superb times of 3:24.04 and 3:25.28 respectively. Bowdoin now had a seven point lead over MIT and Tufts could not be caught.
The shot put was finishing up about the same time as the 3200 relay was getting under way. Uzoma Orji added another two feet to his best, throwing a nation leading 57-11 3/4 to easily win the event. Khan supported the MIT effort with his own personal best of 48-11 for second place. Bowdoin scored seven points to MIT's 12 to maintain a two point lead.
When it was clear MIT could not put together a scoring team in the 1600 relay they elected to load up their 4x800 to make sure they could win the event. If they won the event, the worst that would happen is they would tie Bowdoin for second place in the meet. If Tufts also placed ahead of Bowdoin, MIT would finish in second by five points.
Stoddard started things off with a solid 2:03.5 first 800, handing the stick off just ahead of Tufts. Collins ran his first 800 of the year, maintaining a small lead over Tufts by running 2:05.0. Constantinou continued with his superb meet by running 2:02.1, providing Anderson with a five meter lead going into the final leg. Anderson ran 29 for each 200, posting a 1:56.3 anchor to win by four seconds over Tufts and 14 over Bowdoin.
Ending the regular season with a 5-2 record was the worst record since 1996, when MIT last lost to Tufts. Nevertheless, the Engineers knew this was a possibility and now must look forward to the championships, where they hope to do better riding the tails of Orji and Anderson. Next week, MIT travels to Harvard to compete in the Greater Boston Championship against Harvard, Northeastern, Bentley and Brandeis.