GREAT PERFORMANCES, MISSED OPPORTUNITIES EQUAL THIRD PLACE IN NEW ENGLAND DIVISION III CHAMPIONSHIP
February 23, 2008
MIT lived up to their seed, placing third among the 25 scoring teams with 101 points in the New England Division III Championship hosted by Tufts University. Seeded third behind Tufts and Williams College, the Engineers from MIT thought if everything went just right they would be able to surpass their seed and defeat one or both teams seeded ahead of them. There was a lot of room to move up as many of MIT's points were from low seeds while neither Tufts nor Williams had as many opportunities to move up. Tufts set the table in the first event, the pentathlon, contested on Friday. An event in which freshman, Nick Leonard scored a personal best 2912 points but was only able to manage 11th place. Seeded to score 11 points, the Jumbos scored 20 in an impressive performance.
Being 20 points down going into the regular meet was somewhat expected but the recent bad news that Tech's top two middle-distance runners, Yermie Cohen and Jake Ruzevick, were both injured made the task a bit daunting if anyone were to stop and think about it. Fortunately, the team competed and tried to see how they could compete better instead of thinking of what could go wrong. The first such opportunity to make up some points came in the long jump. While super soph, Stephen Morton was seeded first, Anthony Teixeira was seeded 10th. With only eight places scoring, he needed to have a great jump. Teixeira jumped 21-2 early to get himself into the finals and in seventh place. Morton could not put a winning jump together and going into the finals was still in second place. After the first jump in the finals he had to go over and run the trials in the 200. After successfully qualifying for the finals with a 22.69 he was to late to get his second jump in the finals. Getting his breath, Morton finally put together a decent jump, leaping 22-5 3/4 to win the event. The plus two points was a small dent but it was a start.
Prior to Morton's 200 trial, Teixeira had run over to get his 55HH trial in. Seeded eighth, Teixeira got a much needed great start to run a personal best of 7.92, the third fastest time in the trials. Unfortunately, Omari Stephens, who had been seeded seventh, inherited Teixeira's usual slow start and could not make up the difference, missing the finals by two spots. In the finals, Teixeira placed fourth with a 7.87, a time that breaks into the top ten on the all-time MIT list. Not only did his five points give MIT another plus two over their seeds but Tufts scored two less than their seeds.
The pole vault was underway and Stephens was hoping to make up for his hurdle faux pas. All four MIT vaulters (Stephens, Greg Tao, Patrick Barragan, Nate Sharpe) cleared their opening vaults and going into 13'11 1/4, Stephens, Barragan and Tao were still alive. Tao was not vaulting with his usual expertise and could not make the height. He was clean through the earlier heights and had eighth place sewed up. Barragan made the height, personal best, as did Stephens. At 14'5 1/4 only Stephens and one other vaulter made the height. Barragan was awarded sixth place based on misses. Stephen's nailed 14-11 on his first attempt, winning the vault. MIT made up a huge six points over their seed, but the single Tufts' vaulter made up five points with his third place finish, nearly negating the Engineer's advantage.
The mile was the first final in the running events, and Yermie Cohen was going to give it a try. Seeded fifth with his 4:15 time earned on BU's banked track, Cohen was determined to score points for his team. Despite the pain, he stayed with the pack through the first half of the race. As the pace picked up Cohen was unable to respond but did close well, running 4:18.28 for seventh place.
In the 400, Stephen Oney was seeded seventh. Even though he ran a flat track personal best of 51.13 it was only good for eighth place. John Granata and Dave Reshef were in the 600 with Granata seeded sixth. Reshef ran a personal best of 1:24.24, seventh on the all-time MIT list, but it was not good enough to place. Granata showed his inexperience, getting boxed in twice and unable to find a clear lane even at the finish, settled for a fifth place in 1:22.91, good for second on the all-time MIT list. The 600 plus one point made up for the 400 loss of one point.
Matt Bieniosek was seeded sixth in the 800 but the remnants of his cold and fever took their toll as he struggled in the final 400. Fortunately, Bill Phipps, seeded 10th, stepped up and ran a personal best of 1:57.13 out of the slow section to secure sixth place, giving MIT what they were seeded to get. Without Cohen in the 1000, who was the fifth seed, it was up to freshman Kevin Kleinguetl to make up the points. The pressure seemed a little much for Kleinguetl as he was unable to race with the leaders and did not place.
The end of the meet was where MIT was hoping to make up their points and James Oleinik got things going in the shot put. Seeded fifth, Oleinik threw well, putting the shot 48-01 1/4 for fourth. To place any higher he would have had to throw over 50'.
Back on the track, Morton was in the fast section of the 200 final. Running a flat track personal best, Morton raced to a 22.41 second place finish. He then raced over to the triple jump to start his quest to earn his number one seed. The jumpers were showing signs of the physical and emotional fatigue as it took them awhile to get their best jumps in. Ideally, Morton would have gotten off a 47' leap on his first attempt and then passed each attempt unless someone passed him. This was not the case as it took him until his third attempt to take the lead with a nice jump of 46'. He was prepared to now get ready for his leadoff leg in the 4x400, a move necessary to put MIT in the lead in the relay and go for the win. Unfortunately, Dan Marcy of Tufts put the pressure on by jumping 46-11 to take the lead on his first attempt in the finals. Morton was unable to pass him on either of his first two attempts in the finals although he did move within 10 cm. With the second section of the 4x400 already racing, Morton was waiting for his final attempt. As the best jumper in the trials, Morton was the final jumper. By the time he jumped he was about five minutes from having to lead off the relay and MIT had no one else available to take his spot. Shutting all of this out, Morton leaped to a personal best of 47-01 3/4 to snatch another victory.
Prior to the relays, MIT attempted to score 20 points out of the two distance events (3000 and 5000 meter runs) even though they were only seeded to score 13. Joe Roy-Mayhew took the lead just after the 1700 meter mark, jumping the pace from 71 second 400s to 67 seconds per 400. This strung out the field but Roy-Mayhew was not quite able to hold the lead, dropping to a well earned 8:42.55 third place. Gihan Amarasiriwardena placed sixth with a 8:50.14, an outstanding race for the freshman. Chris Wong ran a similar strategy to Roy-Mayhew in the 5000. Running in the back for much of the race, Wong took the lead with less than 800 to go throwing down a 71 400 and then a 31 final 200 to place second in a personal best of 15:08.38. Running a personal best himself, Brian Jacokes earned seventh place with a 15:15.48. The 19 points earned in the two events far exceeded their seeds and almost met their goal.
In the distance medley relay, without Cohen and Ruzevick available for the 4x800, Nick Leonard had to come back from the pentathlon to run the 400 leg. Kleinguetl did not race at the front as expected but still managed a 3:13 leadoff 1200 leg, putting MIT far off the lead in fifth place. Leonard managed to hold the team's position with his 53 400. Shawn Conrad ran an outstanding 2:00 800 leg, his best this season by three seconds. Paul Welle, determined to get MIT the victory, went out in an ill-advised 60 for the first 400 and 2:05 at the 800, bringing him within 30 meters of the lead and into third place. Feeling the effects of the fast early pace, Welle slowed, running 4:22 for the 1600, but managed to hold onto third place in a freshman relay record of 10:29.65. By comparison, MIT had won the year before with a 10:32.
Despite the hope of Morton giving MIT the lead in the 4x400 to avoid the difficulties and inefficiency of handing off behind or in the middle of a group of teams, Morton was unable to disassociate himself from the emotions of the triple jump win and physical fatigue from the long day, running only 52.7 for the leadoff leg. Oney ran a find leg of 51.2, followed by Bieniosek's 51.5 to keep MIT in the thick of the race. Granata anchored with an excellent 50.0 to bring MIT to fourth place, less than two seconds from the victory.
Going into the final event, the 4x800 relay, MIT was one point behind Williams, 97 to 98 and Tufts had the meet locked up with 117 points. Reshef led off for MIT, went out a little fast in 27 for the first 200 but looked good through 600 meters in 1:28 before falling off a little in the final 200, nevertheless running a fine 1:59.8 leadoff. Freshman, Richard Prevost ran a superb leg and a huge personal best of 1:58.7 to put MIT in a great position to beat Williams. Peter Mulligan ran his best but his 2:00.9 allowed Williams to gain an advantage on the final lap. Phipps went out in 28 and closed the gap on the Williams runner, taking the lead coming through a 58.3 400. Holding the lead over Williams, Phipps ran 1:27.8 through 600 but was not able to respond to the kick of the Williams runner, finishing in 1:58.9 for a fifth place 7:58.78 performance.
MIT will graduate 31 individual points after this season as well as a couple of relay legs. Nevertheless the team is young and will hope to improve on this year's performance when MIT hosts this championship in 2009. Next on the schedule for Tech is the all division New England Championship at Boston University on February 29-March 1.