ALUMNI RUN AWAY WITH TRACK MEET
January 6, 2007
When a program has All America athletes and national champions, inevitably, particularly at MIT, they graduate. Those graduates feel the need to come back in the annual MIT Alumni vs. Varsity indoor track and field meet and humiliate the current varsity athletes who generally are not at the All America level. This desire became a reality on Saturday as the "Has-Beens" ran away with the meet by a score of 81 to 41.
Double winners ruled the day for the Alums. Uzoma Orji showed that his skills have not deteriorated despite not practicing as he won the weight throw with a 62-3 effort and the shot at 52-11 1/2. Zach Traina got pay-back on David Blau for beating him in both the 55 and 200 in last year's meet, by winning the 55 in 6.62 and the 200 in a very impressive 22.64. Ben Schmeckpeper repeated his double win from last year by taking the mile in 4:23.50 and the 5000 in 15:19.21.
Other victories by the Alumni were had by Thad Wozniak in the long jump (21-2 1/2), Nate Ball in the pole vault (14-6), Craig Mielcarz in the high jump (6-2), Rick Rajter in the 55HH (7.99) and the foursome of Traina, Blau, Wozniak and Rajter in the 4x200 relay.
The only events won by the varsity were the triple jump by Omari Stephens (42-7), the 400 by William Fedus (51.74) and the 800 by Jake Ruzevick (2:00.28). Despite the low score, the varsity performed better in nearly every event than in last year's meet. The horizontal jumpers are still on a limited approach and sprinters and field event athletes are finishing a difficult conditioning period.
Stephens had a very good day by not only winning the triple jump but also running 8.31 in the high hurdles and jumping 14-0 in the pole vault. All three marks qualify for the New England Division III Championship (NED3). Stephen Morton had a superb day even though he finished third to Traina and Blau in the 55 and second to Traina in the 200. Morton qualified for the NED3 meet in both events, setting a new MIT freshman record in the 200 at 22.78. The previous record had been set on a banked track and was shared by Traina and Blau at 22.95.
Other NED3 qualifiers were Anthony Teixeira in the 55HH, Patrick Barragan in the pole vault, James Oleinik in the shot put and Ruzevick in the mile. Although none of them qualified, four varsity runners broke 16:00 in the 5K, led by Chris Wong in 15:45.05. Following Wong were Tyler Abrams in 15:49.28, Hemagiri Arumugam in 15:52.56 and Brian Jacokes in 15:57.68.
Although approaching the 40 year mark, Bill Singhose still has it. Professor Singhose cleared 14-6 in the pole vault for second place, threw the shot 40-8 1/2 for third and 41-3 in the weight throw for third. Other Alumni place winners were Ravi Sastry placed second in the 55HH, Todd Chamoy second in the weight throw, Carlos Renjifo placed third in the mile with a superb kick, Eric Khatchadourian, who will be on the varsity team for the outdoor season, placed second in the 5K, Rajter was second in the high jump and third in the triple jump and Mielcarz was second in the long jump.
Next week MIT travels to Bates College to begin their intercollegiate competition against Bates and Coast Guard.