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Cohen, Morton Again Lead the Way for the Engineers Victory Against Williams /Jones Leads Women in Losing Effort February 7, 2009 MIT played host to track and field power house, Williams College and the Bears from the Coast Guard Academy in an action packed meet with numerous national regional qualifying performances for all three teams. The men's team representing MIT was victorious with a score of 171 to 117.5 for Williams and 87.5 for Coast Guard. On the women's side Williams proved to be too deep for MIT's small squad as the Ephs scored 213.5 to the Engineers 154 and Coast Guard's 19.5. The men began the meet strong with Yermie Cohen '09, last week's ECAC runner of the week, defeating last year's national runner-up in the outdoor 1500, Macklin Chaffee, with a negatively split 4:18.88. Hemu Arumugam '10, placed fourth in 4:22.95 and Paul Welle '11, finished sixth in 4:24.67. With the scoring awarding places first through sixth with a 7-5-4-3-2-1 format, MIT began with 11 points to Williams 9. As the hurdlers were lining up to start, Stephen Morton '10, was putting the finishing touches on his 23-3 1/4 national qualifying long jump victory. Mattias Flander '11, and Greg Tao '10, supported Morton, placing fourth and sixth respectively for another 11 points. Nick Leonard '11, ran his first 55HH race and made it count with a 8.39 victory. Again MIT scored 11 points as Brendan Ensor '12, and Andrew Musacchio '11, claimed fourth and sixth places. Williams managed a third in the long jump and second and fifth in the 55HH, leaving the score after three events, MIT 33, Williams 20, Coast Guard 13. If there was any doubt in the outcome of the men's meet, it was put to rest in the shot put. Mitch Kelley '11, stepped up with a big PR of 45-3 to claim first place, as Tony McDonald '10, Adam Mustafa '11, and Jared Darby '12, earned second, third and fifth place to open up a 51 to 21 lead, which they never relinquished. The Engineers continued to shine throughout the meet. Cohen returned in the 800 to run a personal best of 1:58.16 to again defeat Chaffee in a close race. Morton claimed three other victories during the meet, the 55 dash in 6.54, the 200 in a season best 22.63 and the triple jump with the second best mark in the country for Division III at 47-10. Tony McDonald came from behind in the 35 lb. weight throw to claim the victory on his next to last throw with an effort of 47-5 1/4. CK Umachi '12, and Mitch Kelley supported with personal bests and third and fourth place respectively. The Engineers also dominated in the distance events with Arumugam and Welle coming back from the mile to place 1-2 in the 3000 with negative split times of 8:50.83 and 8:53.01. Gihan Amarasiriwardena '11, ran away with the 5000 victory in 15:26.51 and was supported with a third place effort by Ben Mattocks '12, (15:43.60) and a fourth place by Jack Bourbonnais '10, (15:52.50). Greg Tao '10, showed his dominance once again in the pole vault with a leap of 14-8 3/4. MIT showed their depth by having three other vaulters clear 13-9; Davey Hunt '12, Nathan Peterson '12, and Travis Hery '11. Perhaps the best race of the day came in the final men's event, the 3200 relay. MIT and Coast Guard ran neck and neck throughout the final leg with Matt Bieniosek '09, finishing a great day of races (52.80 400, 2:34.32 1000) with a 1:59.4 anchor leg for a 8:02.92 victory. All in all, MIT won 13 of 17 events they entered, choosing not to run the 1600 relay with the meet already won. Anticipating a chance at victory against the visiting Williams squad, Hazel Briner '11, and Portia Jones '12 were entered in 12 individual events and two relays each. The day of the meet, two of the Engineer's stars, Jacqui Wentz '10, and Amy Magnuson '10 were pulled from the meet due to illness and injury prevention and distance runners, Elizabeth Finn '09, and Maggie Lloyd '12, were also rested due to the stomach bug going through the campus. With a small squad further depleted with the illness going around, MIT made the decision to back off at the end of the meet and not run two of the relays. However, in the beginning of the meet, MIT came out of the gates ready to compete. Jones won the first event, the long jump with a personal best of 16-0 and Briner claimed the shot put with a PR of her own at 35-1. On the track, Jennifer Doyle '09, claimed her first victory with an indoor mile PR of 5:13.33. Jones came right back and qualified for nationals with an 8.43 55HH victory. Ten minutes later, Jones set a varsity record in the 400 with another victory with a time of 59.93. Winning the first five events had MIT tied with Williams at 53 points. MIT was only able to win three other events in the meet as the quality and depth of the Williams squad began to overwhelm the Engineers. Andrea Bradshaw '09, won her specialty, the 800 in 2:17.85. Emily Hwang '09, qualified provisionally for nationals in the pole vault when she won her event in 11-7. The quartet of Alicia Kaestli '12, Adrienne Bolger '09, Kirsten Aarsvold '11, and Bradshaw ran 9:48.73 to win the 3200 relay. Jones score a total of 31 points by also claiming second in the 200 (26.37) and high jump (4-11 1/2). Briner scored 19 with a third in the high jump (4-11 1/2), fourth in the long jump (14-5 3/4), fifth in the 55HH after stumbling at the start (10.76), a fifth in the 20 lb. weight throw (29-5 1/2) although she threw 36' on her final effort but had exceeded the time limit and a sixth in the 55 dash (7.92). The performances in the shot put, long jump, high jump and 55 dash were all personal bests. Other outstanding performances were earned by the Engineers. Lynn Jepsen '11, jumped 10-1 1/4 in the pole vault for a PR and third place. Alicia Kaestli '12, ran a personal best of 2:22. 39 in the 800 with an MIT freshman record. Doyle came back in the 3000 with a personal best of 10:35.55 for second place and Tania Morimoto '12, ran another outstanding race for a 10:45.88 third place. In the 5000, Anna Holt-Gosselin raced to a 18:02.87 for second place and a fabulous personal best. Katy Gordon ran a nice season best of 19:00.46, just missing the 19 minute barrier. Next week, MIT hosts the MIT Coed Invitational on 2/14 while also competing at the Boston University Valentine's Invitational on 2/13 (women) and 2/14 (men). |