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Women Trump Last Week's Results Five NCAA Qualifying Marks Lead the Way February 27-28, 2009 Starting up where they left off last week, the Engineers did not miss a beat as five MIT athletes qualified or bettered their qualifying mark in the first five events they competed in at the All Division New England Championship (NEICAAA). Choosing to rest some key performers who raced multiple events last weekend, MIT went after national qualifying marks for a few athletes rather than try to outscore the other teams in this championship, matching teams from all three NCAA divisions within the New England region. Hazel Briner '11, got things started, trying to improve her mark in the pentathlon. Her high hurdles was a new personal best of 8.88. After a strong high jump of 4-10 1/2, Briner fouled her first two shot puts, the second a nice bomb of about 38'. Her final throw was a safety of only 31'. She finished with a 2:26.99 800 to score 3106 for a new PR and place third in the competition. However, her new mark still has her at 11th overall in the national ranking. The fact that the NCAA is not likely to take more than 11 to the championship field means she has to try another pent. at the ECAC Championship next week. Martha Gross '12, was first up in the 400. She set the table by running a PR of 59.88 to claim the number two spot on the all-time MIT list. Portia Jones '12, decided to run most of the 400 as a race, getting out in 26.9 for the first 200 and finishing in a new MIT record of 56.77. Jones's mark put her at number three on the national ranking. In the pole vault, Emily Hwang '09, cleared a new personal best of 12-6, shattering the MIT record and qualifying automatically for the NCAA Division III Championship. Hwang's third place finish was complimented by an indoor personal best of 11-0 1/4 by Karin Fisher '11. Andrea Bradshaw '09, improved her personal best in the 800 with a 2:15.00 in winning her heat to qualify for the finals on Saturday. Her mark was on a banked track so due to the NCAA penalty imposed on banked tracks, her 2:15.18 on a flat track is higher on the NCAA performance list. Jennifer Doyle '09, running out of the slow section in the 5000 due to her 18:45 time from earlier in the season, took no prisoners as she took the lead at the start. Running the first 1600 in 5:33, Doyle slowed slightly to 86 second quarters as she came through 3200 in 11:17. As she proceeded to lap the entire field, she finished with a 81 400 before the final 200 in 38 seconds, showing there is more in the tank. Doyle's 17:35.15 was a provisional qualifying for the NCAA Championship and placed fourth overall in this competition. Tania Morimoto '12, went after a sub 17:50 performance, but after solid 1600 splits of 5:38 and 11:24, faded in the final 1800 meters to finish in 18:24.04. Amy Magnuson '10, had a shaky start in the 55HH, but recovered to race to a 8.45 finish to qualify for the semi-finals on Saturday. Finishing the first day for the women, Jones was back on the track in the 200. Setting a new MIT record is becoming the default performance for Jones and she did not disappoint as she toured the oval in 25.56 to shatter her own mark. On the men's side, Greg Tao '10, cleared 15-3, but was unable to have any consistency with his approach and could not clear 15-9. Matt Bieniosek '09, ran his personal best in the 800, just missing the provisional qualifying mark for nationals with a 1:54.36. Bieniosek will try next week to improve his time to give himself a chance of making nationals. Katherine Eve '12, led things off for the Engineers on day two with the mile run. Sitting at the back of the pack until there was only 400 meters to go, Eve took herself out of the race. However, her 75 second final quarter did give her a personal best of 5:13.00. In the men's mile, Yermie Cohen '09, raced in the seeded section but was the slowest seed at 4:13. He did not let this affect his racing however. Running in the back of the pack with solid splits of 61.5 and 2:04.9, Cohen moved up in the pack even though he slowed to 3:09.3. In the final quarter he picked it up, closing with a 61.4 for a 4:11.30, placing fifth overall. Cohen's time currently ranks him ninth on the NCAA list. Amy Magnuson returned in the semi-finals of the 55HH, winning her heat in 8.41, but in the final was only able to duplicate her performance, which netted her a fifth place. Portia Jones got out well in the finals of the 400, possibly too fast at 26.2, even though she did not get the break. She closed well but did not pass on the backstretch as she should have. Her finish in 57.62 was good for sixth place overall. The final event for MIT was the finals of the women's 800. Bradshaw got out well, coming through the 400 in 64 and in the middle of the lead group. Just after the 500 mark she was bumped just as she was moving with the leaders. This knocked her to the third lane and caused her to lose ground. She recovered and moved up, but at the 700 meter mark she was partially tripped from behind and totally lost it after such a fast first 400, finishing in 2:16.32. Next week, MIT will send some athletes to Tufts University, the host school for the ECAC Division III Championship. |