MIT RUNS TO PERSONAL BESTS IN TUNE-UP FOR DIVISION III CHAMPIONSHIP
February 11, 2006
MIT Men's track and field team split their squad between the MIT Coed Invitational and the Boston University Valentines Invitational, both non-scoring meets, in order to match individuals up with the best opportunity to compete and possibly qualify for upcoming championships.
Boston University's 200 meter banked track is one of the fastest tracks in the country. The open invitational format brings hundreds of teams from all over the country in the pursuit of fast times. Since many championships are going the way of final sections on time and leaving the ordeal of qualifying rounds as a thing of the past, except in the case of the sprints, it is advisable to secure a fast performance in order to get into the fast sections of the upcoming championships. Thus teams travel from very far away in order to race at facilities like Boston University.
Many of the division III teams from New England bring their entire team to Boston, racing their championship level competitors at BU and bringing the remainder of their team to MIT. Ten women's teams and eight men's teams made their way over to MIT.
Leading the way for MIT in the field was Nate Ball, who won the pole vault at a height of 16-1, missing a new record height of 16-7. Other vaulters who did well were Patrick Barragan, who set a season best of 12-6 and Thad Wozniak setting a personal best of 10-00. On the track, Dan Rodgers set a freshman record for MIT with a 1:06.04 performance in the 500. MIT had many personal bests at the two venues. In the 200, David Blau ran a new personal best of 22.34 as he gradually gets closer to the one year old varsity record set by Zach Traina.
Alex Rothberg ran a season and indoor best in the 400 with a 52.10 performance. In the 800, Fivos Constantinou ran a season best of 1:59.31. Teammates David Reshef and Aron Walker also ran personal bests of 2:01.50 and 2:01.81 respectively. Yermie Cohen ran a personal best of 2:35.31 in the 1000 meter run to improve his qualifying position in next week's New England Division III Championship.
In the distance events, Chris Bruce and Trevor Rundell ran personal bests of 8:49.20 and 8:51.47 in the 3000 and Tyler Abrams ran 16:20.29 in the 5000.
Perhaps the most significant improvement of the day came from freshman John McGonagle, who ran a 1:27.49 in the 600.
MIT has virtually no chance to dethrone Williams College next week in the New England Division III Championship, but hopes to contend for a trophy, which the top three teams receive.